EU pauses probe into Elon Musk's X amid trade U.S. talks

The European Commission decided to complete trade talks with the U.S. first and paused one of the many probes into Elon Musk’s social media platform X. However, Big U.S. tech firms have come out with claims of unfair targeting by the EU, complaining that the bloc’s rules infringed on their right to free speech.

Brussels has several concurrent investigations into Musk’s X under the EU’s DSA (Digital Services Act). It was expected to complete its probe into X’s violation of transparency rules before the EU’s summer, but will likely miss the deadline following the pause. One of three officials familiar with the matter said it was all tied up, adding that clarity of the EU–U.S. trade negotiations was necessary before pushing forward with investigations. The European Commission has sought to secure a trade agreement with the U.S. since April.

The Commission’s President, Ursula von der Leyen, stated that the bloc would not change its rulebook despite pressure from the United States. President Donald Trump has directly attacked the EU probes and fines on U.S. firms, calling them “overseas extortion” and indirect taxation. Trump defended U.S. tech giants despite falling out with Musk a few weeks back. The bloc imposed fines of up to €700M on Meta and Apple for breaching antitrust regulations. 

Cavazzini separates X probes from trade talks

European lawmaker Anna Cavazzini expected the Commission to continue “decisively” with its investigations into the X platform amid ongoing tariff negotiations with different U.S. representatives. The Commission also asserted that the investigations against X were independent of the trade talks. It added that it was fully committed to enforcing the DMA (Digital Markets Act) and the DSA.

The Commission also disclosed that content moderation was another area it investigated alongside transparency violations. The Polish government and some European lawmakers also pushed the Commission to investigate X’s AI chatbot Grok. The chatbot generated some highly antisemitic tropes last week. However, the X team disagreed with the Commission’s interpretation of the DSA’s scope. The team also claimed that the Commission had disregarded entirely the “comprehensive work” done by the team to comply with the bloc’s rules.

“The commission must continue making changes to EU regulations an absolute red line in tariff negotiations with the U.S.”

–Anna Cavazzini, European lawmaker for the Greens

Brussels officials said all decisions related to the U.S. were particularly politically sensitive due to the ongoing trade negotiations. They added that it was important not to offend Trump and his administration or escalate conflicts in transatlantic trade. However, they have also warned that any company breaching the DSA could face fines of up to 6% of its global turnover, and repeat offenders could face a total ban from European operations altogether.

France launches criminal investigations against X

France started investigating the X platform following accusations of high-profile political interference in Germany and Brazil. The Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office claimed that X was accused of the “alteration” of automated data processing functioning and the “fraudulent” data extraction from automated data processing systems by organized groups. These accusations allowed French prosecutors to order police interviews and search operations under French law.

Nine EU civil society organizations have also filed complaints against X regarding the use of users’ data to target adverts. The organizations—the Center for Democracy and Technology Europe, Global Witness, AI Forensics, Panoptykon Foundation, Entropy, VoxPublic, European Digital Rights, Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte e.V. (GFF), and Stichting Bits of Freedom—took their complaints to the French media regulator Arcom and the European Commission.

The organizations urged both regulators to enforce the DSA, which prohibited targeted adverts based on sensitive user data like sexuality, race, and religion. They said their concerns were based on their probe into X’s publicly available Ad Repository database, which the DSA requires companies to set up.

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