Musk: EU Must Be Abolished
Elon Musk called for the EU to be “abolished” after the bloc fined his social media platform X €120mln (£105mln).
In a series of posts on the site, the billionaire lashed out at the officials who handed out the punishment for transparency breaches and threatened to pursue each country individually, The Telegraph reported.“The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people,” he wrote.Hours later, Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, wrote on X, “Dear American friends, Europe is your closest ally, not your problem. And we have common enemies. At least that’s how it has been in the last 80 years. We need to stick to this; this is the only reasonable strategy for our common security. Unless something has changed.”His response comes amid growing frustration within the White House about the direction of the European Union.On Thursday night, Donald Trump’s administration released a national security strategy that accused the EU of undermining “political liberty and sovereignty”, censoring free speech and encouraging uncontrolled migration.The 33-page document stressed that Washington would make “ensuring fair treatment of US workers and businesses” a key plank of its dealings with the bloc.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has taken pains to endear himself to Trump, and any move to undo Brexit, as some Labour MPs now suggest, could endanger that relationship.The White House had applied significant pressure on EU leaders to drop the flagship case against X, launched under the bloc’s new content moderation law, the Digital Services Act.In response to rumours of the ruling, JD Vance, the vice president, said on Thursday that the EU should be “supporting free speech, not attacking US companies over garbage.”But after a two-year investigation, the European Commission ruled against X on three counts. It found that the ‘blue tick’ verification badge was deceptive as users could simply pay for the privilege, that there was a lack of transparency over advertisers on the site, falling foul of safeguards against scams and illegal promotions, and that researchers were denied access to what should be public data.The first change incurred a €45mln fine, the second €35mln and the last €40mln. A Commission spokesman said the penalty was for a breach “committed by X” but addressed to the “entire corporate structure”, which the bloc’s officials had previously said consists of three entities with Musk “at the top”.
Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, said, “The ‘EU’ imposed this crazy fine not just on [X], but also on me personally, which is even more insane! Therefore, it would seem appropriate to apply our response not just to the EU, but also to the individuals who took this action against me.”Trump officials piled in with criticisms. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State wrote on X that the fine was “an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments. The days of censoring Americans online are over”.Christopher Landau, his deputy, suggested the ruling would encourage Washington to further disengage from its role in the NATO military alliance. He said that the “nations of Europe cannot look to the US for their own security at the same time they affirmatively undermine the security of the US itself through the (unelected, undemocratic, and unrepresentative) EU”.Trump has threatened to impose additional tariffs on the bloc if it proceeds with the penalising of US tech giants, while his officials have pushed Brussels to scrap the DSA entirely.In the national security strategy, the White House welcomed the growth of “patriotic” European political forces opposed to the bloc’s current trajectory, and said it would help to “cultivate” them.
“Nobody elected you,” the hard-Right Dutch firebrand Geert Wilders wrote on X, addressing the EU. “You are a totalitarian institution and can’t even spell the words freedom of speech. We should not accept the fining [of X], but abolish [the commission],” Wilders added.On Thursday, UK Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, suggested that Britain rejoining the EU customs union could boost economic growth. His intervention came after The Telegraph reported on the growing influence of a team of Downing Street insiders who endorse reversing elements of Brexit.
09:45 - 16 آذر 1404
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