{"id":782136,"date":"2026-09-25T12:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T12:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/782136\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T12:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T12:08:09","slug":"us-backs-elon-musks-bid-to-overturn-e120m-eu-fine-against-x","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/782136\/","title":{"rendered":"US backs Elon Musk’s bid to overturn \u20ac120m EU fine against X"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US government is seeking to join Elon Musk’s legal challenge to overturn a \u20ac120m (\u00a3105m) EU fine against X over its blue tick badges.<\/p>\n

In December 2025, the European Commission said the platform<\/a> “deceives users” by allowing people to pay for a blue verified check mark, because it is not “meaningfully verifying” who is behind the account.<\/p>\n

But US Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate said on Thursday that the commission had “inappropriately attempted” to expand its reach to American companies outside its control.<\/p>\n

Musk, who spent millions helping elect Donald Trump and other Republicans, has previously claimed EU tech regulation “inhibits progress” for companies.<\/p>\n

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed an application, external<\/a> with the EU’s General Court in support of Musk’s and X’s attempts to dismiss \u200bthe case.<\/p>\n

It claims that under a section of law in the Statute of the Court of Justice of the EU, a state may intervene in disputes before the court if it “can establish an interest in the result of the case to the court”.<\/p>\n

The DOJ said the US “has a clear interest” in ensuring any decision by the commission was applied consistently with “how territorial jurisdiction is generally understood in international law”.<\/p>\n

It also wants to make sure it would not “otherwise prejudice” US-headquartered digital services that “contribute significantly” to its economy.<\/p>\n

In a press briefing on Friday, external<\/a>, European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said it was “ready to defend” its position in court.<\/p>\n

He added that the commission had an “solid case” at its disposal, due to the alleged breach of its Digital Services Act.<\/p>\n

They are carrying out, of course, the hearing and the ruling, but I can tell you from our side is that we have a very solid case that we have advanced indeed with the \u20ac120 million fine against X last year in December,<\/p>\n

and the Commission is of course absolutely ready to defend its position in court. And a follow up.<\/p>\n

In addition to its use of blue ticks, EU regulators accused X of failing to provide transparency around its adverts and denying researchers access to public data.<\/p>\n

Henna Virkkunen, the regulator’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, said at the time of the fine’s issue it was “holding X responsible for undermining users’ rights and evading accountability”.<\/p>\n

“Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU,” she said.<\/p>\n

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had criticised the EU regulator, accusing it of attacking and censoring US firms.<\/p>\n

“The European Commission’s fine isn’t just an attack on X, it’s an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments,” Rubio wrote in a post on X.<\/p>\n

“The days of censoring Americans online are over.”<\/p>\n

His remarks were reposted by Musk, who added “absolutely”.<\/p>\n

The European Commission denied targeting any specific nationality, stating it is simply protecting its digital and democratic standards to maintain its role as a global benchmark.<\/p>\n

The action marked the Commission’s first official non-compliance decision under the Digital Services Act (DSA), one of two mandatory rulebooks governing online platforms in the EU.<\/p>\n

However, the EU is also conducting several other investigations into the platform, including one into its integrated AI assistant Grok<\/a> over concerns it was used to create sexualised images of real people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US government is seeking to join Elon Musk’s legal challenge to overturn a \u20ac120m (\u00a3105m) EU fine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":782137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-782136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}