Elon Musk called for the abolition of the European Union (EU) in response to the bloc imposing a $140 million fine on its social media platform X. His fury was joined by several senior Trump administration officials who also criticized the decision over the weekend.
European Commission announced a hefty fine on Friday for several violations of the Digital Services Act (DSA), citing the company's “deceptive” design of a blue X checkmark for verified accounts, its “failure to comply with transparency obligations” and its failure to provide researchers with access to public data.
The fine prompted an angry response from Musk and several senior Trump administration officials. regulation from American technology companies in Europe is a key point of contention in US-European relations.
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The spat comes at a time when those relations are increasingly strained over issues of free speech, immigration and the war in Ukraine.
Musk replied “Bulls***” under the European Commission's message about the fine. Then on Sunday he called The EU should be “abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries so that governments can better represent their people.”
Despite them past disagreementsMusk and the Trump administration are hand in hand on technology regulation in Europe. Both CEO X and the administration view any regulation of American technology platforms as an attack on free speech.
The European Commission, the EU's executive body, denies that the DSA is about censorship. The landmark law, passed in 2022, requires tech companies, including US giants such as Meta and X, to remove illegal content and be transparent about their content moderation. DSA fines can reach 6% of a company's annual global revenue.
“We are not here to impose the highest fines,” European Commission technical chief Henna Virkkunen said on Friday. “We're here to make sure our digital laws are followed and if you follow our rules you won't get a fine. And it's that simple.”
“I think it's very important to emphasize that the DSA has nothing to do with censorship,” she told reporters.
TIME has reached out to the European Commission and X for comment.
America and Musk against Europe
But Trump administration officials have spent the last few days on social media portraying the fine as part of a broader attack on the American tech industry and free speech.
“The European Commission's $140 million fine is not just an attack on X, it is an attack on all American technology platforms and the American people by foreign governments,” the secretary of state said. Marco Rubio said on X on Friday. “The days of censoring Americans on the Internet are over.”
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr also condemned the union. Friday morningstating that the EU is “fining a successful US tech company for being a successful US tech company.”
Few have been more outspoken about technology regulation than Vice President J.D. Vance, who forged close ties to a number of Silicon Valley titans on his way to the White House.
Read more: J.D. Vance's new invention
“The EU should support free speech, not attack American companies over trash,” he said. wrote on Thursday before the fine is announced.
Vance has often spoke out against EU regulation American technology companies and Europe itself during President Donald Trump's second term.
He set the tone from the very beginning, in a highly combative speech addressed to European leaders at the Munich Security Conference in February.
He singled out what he called “EU Commission commissioners” for plans to restrict social media during civil unrest and criticized the United Kingdom for “rolling back on rights of conscience.”
He also attacked European governments for “running out of fear of their own voters” and said the biggest threat to Europe was not Russia, but rather total immigration and the exclusion of far-right parties in the region.
Vance specifically defended Musk during the speech after the Tesla CEO was criticized for interfering in the European elections. In January Musk almost appeared at a rally of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and urged participants to “move beyond” guilt and the country's history in the Holocaust less than a century ago.
Read more: Elon Musk supports the far right in Germany. This will backfire
“If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg's abuse, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk,” Vance said in a speech in Munich.
After the speech, Vance met with AfD leader Alice Weidel.
The fine came days after the administration unveiled a new national security strategy that calls for a revival of the Monroe Doctrine, designed to counter any European interference in American affairs while “cultivating resistance to Europe's current trajectory within European countries.”
Several current and former European officials have spoken out against the strategy, which argues that Europe faces “the prospect of civilizational erasure.”
“This is a language that can otherwise only be found in a few quirky minds in the Kremlin,” former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt published on X, which said the document places the US “to the right of the far right in Europe.”
“The stunning section on Europe reads like a far-right pamphlet,” observed Gérard Araud, former French ambassador to the United States, in X magazine. mailnoting that the document “largely confirms” the notion that Trump is an “enemy of Europe.”
