Elon Musk claims EU offered secret deal to censor speech

Elon Musk has claimed that the EU and its European Commission offered X (formerly Twitter) a secret censorship deal. In a post on the platform, Musk claimed that the agency “offered X an illegal secret deal; if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they wouldn’t fine us.”

The complaints come as the social network faces fines of more than $200 million, according to documents recently released by the Commission. In addition, the platform has reportedly been found guilty of violating the Digital Services Act (DSA).

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Elon Musk claims EU offered X illegal deal to censor speech

According to the European Commission, Platform X is facing heavy financial penalties. The EU executive said the company had violated the DSA three times. In addition, it risks fines “of up to 6% of the provider’s total worldwide annual turnover.”

Elon Musk then accused X of being offered a secret censorship deal by the EU. Although the company’s CEO claims that his platform never agreed to this illegal deal, “other platforms have.”

Musk’s statements came in response to European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager, who denounced X’s continued failure to comply with the DSA, saying the site “misleads users, fails to provide an adequate advertising repository, and blocks researchers from accessing data.”

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The claims mirror those published in the EU notice to Elon Musk earlier today. The complaints relate to verification issues. The platform’s “blue checks” have been transferred under Elon Musk.

Previous regimes used them to identify important figures, but Elon Musk opted for a subscription system. “Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a ‘verified’ status, this negatively affects the ability of users to make free and informed decisions,” the commission says.