Elon Musk’s close ties with President Trump may protect him from 32 ongoing investigations until he holds complaints or enforcement action against his company in the United States. But it appears that something else is going on for the musk of Europe.
My colleague, Adam Satariano, got a scoop last night that Musk’s social media platform X is likely to face major penalties in Europe for violating a new law designed to combat illegal content and disinformation. The company is expected to face significant fines and orders to change its services.
This research can complicate the mask agenda and make X the hub for freewheel conversations. Already fascinating differences between the US and Europe over online speeches have been inflamed.
I asked Adam to explain how things have reached this point and how Europe could handle the lawsuit against X, given Musk’s relationship with Trump.
KC: You write that online speech has become a fierce issue between Europe and the US. How did it come to this?
AS: That goes back decades ago, but it’s intensifying under the Trump administration. Europe has long adopted more restrictions on speeches – think of German Nazism restrictions – America prioritizes individual freedom over everything else, except that it is possible to yell “Fire!”. In a crowded theater. Like many things, the Internet, including social media, made the difference in approaches more pronounced and turned them into geopolitical pressure points.
Do you think this explains why there are so many high-tech companies? I’m cooperating with the Trump administration?
There’s no doubt about Meta and X. The language they use for online speeches is hardly indistinguishable from the way President Trump and Vice President JD Vance talk about it.
How will Trump’s foreign policy moves have an impact on this incident? Is Europe likely to seriously fine Musk for retaliation against tariffs? Or maybe they could go easily with musk, worried about upsetting such close allies of the president?
These are all ingredients in the big messy stew of ongoing negotiations, including trade, tariffs and Ukraine. When I was in Brussels this week, when EU officials were thinking about punishing X and other American tech companies, it was clear they were weighing it against the impact on some of the puzzle. Musk’s close relationship with Trump further complicates that.
This is the first penalty issued under the Digital Services Act, right? How big is it and how did it stack up with penalties for other high-tech companies in the US?
The exact timing and size of the penalty will still be determined. But the officials I spoke to wanted to be so big that they put pressure on other companies to follow the law. One official explained why it could exceed $1 billion, but on Friday the European Union publicly said the highs aren’t “on the table.” Do you think the problem is a big problem? When Facebook was fined $5 billion a few years ago by the Federal Trade Commission, its stock actually rose.
The Mask’s era in X focuses on removing content modulation policies that once restricted hate speech and misinformation. Can EU enforcement measures change tenors of conversations seen in X in the US?
I seriously doubt that. This week, X called EU regulations “an unprecedented act of political censorship and an attack on freedom of speech.” But I’m pretty fascinated by this and want to see how it works. These are two very different views on how the internet and social media work. I think X and Musk will fight this very hard, but it’s a standoff.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Doge Report
Cut comes to the Humanities and Diplomacy Program
The Government’s Efficiency Bureau has deployed almost every employee of the Wilson Centre, a nonpartisan foreign policy think tank, in the report of my colleagues Aishvalya Kavi and Edward Wong, reporting on my colleagues Aishvalya Kavi and Edward Wong. Created in 1968 as a working monument to Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President, the center has long been a gathering place for scholars who transcend foreign policy.
The director of the Kenan Institute, the centre that houses the private library of Soviet diplomat George F. Kenan, has posted photos of the collection online and compared it to the famous libraries of ancient Alexandria in Egypt.
At the same time, the Trump administration told state Humanities Council and other grant recipients of the National Fund’s Humanities that their funds will be cancelled. Instead, the money will be used “to promote the president’s agenda,” my colleague Jennifer Schusler reports.
NEH is a key source of funding for museums, historic sites, scholarships, schools and community-based projects across the country, although a small standard by federal standards.
The legal basis for the cancellation is unknown. Observers noted that state Council of Humanities funding is mandatory in law passed by legislation.
Meanwhile, with x
Mama is the word that has been about customs
Musk uses his X account as a megaphone. However, the most interesting topic is one that he chose to avoid.
Often, the mask unleashes a torrent of social media posts about the biggest political news of the day. But that hasn’t been the case in the last 48 hours. Trump introduced boring stock markets as sweeps and stock markets around the world, especially high-tech stocks.
Of course, mask companies are not affected by the pain of customs. Tesla operates part of its manufacturing industry in the US, but there is also a huge factory in Shanghai, importing parts from China for its battery systems. His artificial intelligence company Xai has spent millions on chips for a Memphis supercomputer. Most of them are manufactured in Taiwan.
And there are SpaceX, Neuralink, boring companies – hardware companies that are likely to experience increased costs due to tariffs. Tesla shares have fallen about 11% since tariffs were announced on Thursday.
However, Musk hasn’t mentioned Trump’s new tariffs at all in his X-feed. Most of his posts on the subject dated Trump’s first term when Musk urged the president to consider a tariff plan that would impose “equally moderate” fees on China and the United States, and said there were “no tariffs in any case” between the United States and the United Kingdom.
Musk’s recent posts instead focus on a considerable number of aNodyne subjects, such as the success of the SpaceX mission that ended Friday. As he walked into politics, he focused on his usual cultural war argument: “Remember that you’re cancelled because you don’t use the right pronouns? That was ridiculous,” he wrote early Friday morning.
Musk’s silence on customs is hard to overlook. It suggests he is working to maintain a warm relationship with Trump, even if his dog work may be over soon.
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Scapegoat, it’s a responsibility, but still useful
Has the breakup between Musk and Trump come? If so, what does that mean for the future of the Magazine movement?
These are questions that everyone seems to be asking, and my colleagues Jonathan Swann, Maggie Haberman and Theodore Schleifer analyzed what is happening between the two most powerful men in American politics.
They reported that Musk’s efforts to lean the Wisconsin Supreme Court have failed, but the president is not intending to cut ties with him. Musk is still a GOP money guy, just as much as he rubs some Republicans the wrong way. And Trump appears happy to use his mask as a heat shield, distracting him from criticism when things become cheated.
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