Media & Technology Morality Analyst
Jaymie Johns
Elon Musk, X, and the European Union:
They Made It Personal, So He Did, Too.
December 7, 2025
by Jaymie Johns
On the afternoon of December 5, 2025, the European Commission did something no regulator had ever dared to do in the three-year history of the Digital Services Act: it reached past the corporate shield of X Corp and placed personal, unlimited liability on Elon Musk himself. The €120 million fine was almost beside the point. The real message was printed in black and white on page 217 of the decision: if X does not transform itself into the compliant, heavily moderated platform Brussels demands, enforcement agents can come after Musk’s private fortune, his homes, his stock holdings, anything not locked in an irrevocable trust.
At 10:41 AM, The X page European Commission, an account with 1.8 million followers, posted a video to X of Thomas Regnier, whose previous greatest claim to fame was spearheading Directive on Equitable Butter Distribution, re. Waffles, Belgian, which forbids forbid waffle pockets in any shape other than hexagonal, with a required depth of 0.4mm, which is optimally sized for butter spread*
Regnier's delivery was as scripted as the violations themselves, a trio of technical infractions that the Commission framed not as petty nitpicks, but as foundational cracks in X's armor against scams and manipulation. First: the blue checkmark overhaul. Since Musk's 2022 takeover, verification shifted from a merit-based badge (journalists, celebs, institutions) to a $8/month subscription perk—anyone with a credit card could buy one, no vetting required. The DSA demands platforms ban "deceptive design," and Brussels ruled this a violation: users can't reliably distinguish real influencers from bots or fraudsters, opening the door to impersonation scams that cost Europeans millions annually. "This deceives users," Regnier stated flatly, echoing Executive VP Henna Virkkunen's line that such practices "undermine trust in the digital single market.",
In the ordinary course of events, that kind of threat ends the conversation. Most chief executives would have scheduled emergency flights to Brussels, retained every former commissioner turned lobbyist, and begun negotiating the terms of their surrender before the ink was dry. That is exactly what Meta, Apple, Google, and TikTok have done in sequence over the past eighteen months. Each paid, each adjusted its algorithms, each hired armies of compliance officers, and each quietly accepted that the price of doing business in Europe now includes letting the Commission decide what their users are permitted to see.
Musk wasted no time lighting the fuse. Just over two hours after the Commission's post, he dropped his iconic one-word reply directly under it: "Bullshit."
Like many of his posts, Elon’s response was a single word, though it had none of the humor or boyish charm that usually comes standard; it was a cold, defiant, and unflinchingly clear message that he wasn’t going to take this lying down.
One detail in the Commission’s 312-page decision had changed the entire equation, and Musk zeroed in on it immediately. Buried on page 217 was the line that pierced the corporate veil: for the first time in DSA history, the Commission explicitly declared Elon Musk personally and jointly liable alongside X Corp itself. That meant European enforcement agents could, if the fine went unpaid or X remained non-compliant, could theoretically pursue his private assets anywhere in the world where the EU has mutual legal assistance treaties. It was no longer a corporate dispute that could be settled with lawyers and appeals in Luxembourg; it was now a direct claim against the man, his homes, his Tesla shares, everything not locked behind iron-clad trusts.
Musk’s threat carries real weight precisely because of jurisdiction. Inside the EU legal system, commissioners and senior regulators enjoy functional immunity that is effectively absolute.
Foreign officials can be sued as private individuals, and once they are, American discovery is merciless: years of emails, Signal messages, internal memos, all produced at personal expense. Most Brussels lifers have never paid for their own lawyer in their lives. That asymmetry is the part the city can’t wave away with a press release, and it’s the part that actually keeps them awake at night.
Meta (Facebook/Instagram) complied by hiring 3,000 EU moderators and tweaking algorithms (announced November 2024). Apple adjusted App Store policies for DSA transparency (December 2024). Google/YouTube rolled out ad labeling and content removal tools (October 2024). TikTok settled its DSA ad repo case on December 5, 2025, by promising fixes and without incurring any fines.
While every other social media platform bent a knee, Musk refused to comply.
This is not a stunt. It is the logical endpoint of a three-year philosophical collision that can no longer be papered over with press releases. The European Union has concluded that open platforms are a threat to social cohesion and democratic stability. Its answer is a regulatory framework that effectively turns large platforms into licensed broadcasters, required to suppress “harmful” content proactively and in real time. Every other major company has accepted the new reality, however grudgingly.
Now the confrontation has become visceral. By holding X Corp—and its parent X Holdings—accountable under the DSA, the Commission has targeted the platform's corporate structure directly, forcing Musk to confront the limits of his defiant overhaul. In doing so, it has handed him the ammunition to rally his base against what he frames as a supranational assault on American innovation and expression.
The stakes could not be higher. If the Commission enforces the €120 million penalty and X fails to comply with its 90-day action plan, the precedent will be set: any non-compliant platform can face escalating fines up to 6% of global revenue, potentially billions for X alone. The chilling effect on innovation and speech would be immediate and global, as other VLOPs weigh the cost of resistance. If Musk's public threats and political alliances lead to even a minor EU backpedal—say, a settlement or delayed enforcement—the DSA’s aura of invincibility will crack. Platforms that previously capitulated may reconsider. Smaller competitors may find room to breathe. And the dream of a single, supranational internet regulator imposing European speech norms on the world will suffer a blow from which it may never recover.
We are still in the opening exchanges. X has 90 days to appeal to the European Court of Justice or submit a compliance plan, as Apple and others have done in past DSA disputes. Broader tensions simmer, with U.S. officials hinting at tariffs on EU goods in retaliation for perceived anti-American bias in DSA enforcement. Political backlash against Musk's companies has already surfaced—protests at Tesla's Berlin Gigafactory over environmental concerns, and EU
efforts to rival Starlink with a €11 billion satellite program—but no direct DSA-linked actions against them have materialized yet. Billions of dollars, thousands of legal hours, and countless reputations hang in the balance.
Elon Musk looked at the assembled might of the European Union, at its treaties and directives and unelected enforcers, and answered with a defiance as pure as it is absolute.
They came for his company. He answered by coming for their legitimacy, their relevance, and their grip on the digital future.
They wanted to make the cost of resistance unbearable; he has chosen to make the cost of control unthinkable.
Whatever the final judicial outcome, one fact is already irrevocable: the battle for the open internet is no longer a policy debate. It is a test of wills, and only one side is fighting like it understands what is truly at stake.