Europe slapped Elon Musk's X with a big fine

Elon Musk’s social media site X is being fined $140 million — or 120 million euros — by the European Union for breaching its online transparency rules, marking the first non-compliance decision under the EU’s Digital Services Act. 

The European Commission said breaches made by X include the “deceptive design” of X’s blue checkmark, the “lack of transparency” of its advertising repository which it said “lacks critical information,” and the “failure to provide access to public data for researchers." 

“On X, anyone can pay to obtain the ‘verified' status without the company meaningfully verifying who is behind the account, making it difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with,” the Commission said in a statement released Thursday. “This deception exposes users to scams, including impersonation frauds, as well as other forms of manipulation by malicious actors.”

X did not immediately respond to Quartz’s request for comment. 

The Commission has been investigating whether X breached its DSA rules for almost two years, and said its formal proceedings into the company’s potential links to the “dissemination of illegal content” as well as the “effectiveness of the measures taken to combat information manipulation” will continue. 

Under these proceedings, the Commission investigated the breaches X is being fined for. It adopted preliminary findings on X’s breaches in July 2024. 

The EU’s Digital Services Act aims to protect users rights online and to “establish a level playing field” among services. 

Musk’s X has 60 working days to tell the Commission how it plans to fix its “deceptive use of blue checkmarks." It has 90 working days to give an action plan on how it will fix breaches related to its advertising and access to public data. After receiving the social media site’s action plan, the EU’s Board of Digital Services has one month to give its opinion and another month to issue its final decision and establish an implementation timeframe. 

If X doesn’t comply with the Commission’s decision, it could face “periodic penalty payments.” 

The Commission said the price point of the fine was calculated based on “the nature of these infringements” as well as their “gravity” on EU users and how long they lasted.