Elon Musk is the proprietor of social media platform X.
Aytug Can Sencar | Anadolu | Getty Photographs
A $140 million high quality on tech tycoon Elon Musk’s social media platform underscores how Europeans undermine U.S. insurance policies even whereas demanding that america present army safety, one of many high American diplomats wrote on Saturday.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau joined Secretary of State Marco Rubio and different American officers in criticizing the European Union’s high quality on Musk-owned X as censorship. However Landau went additional than Rubio by invoking broader ideological and strategic issues.
Landau posted on X that the EU’s variations with the Trump administration on many points undermine the concept of a partnership with america regardless of the North Atlantic Treaty Group. The EU’s regulatory stance might damage shared Western safety and values, Landau wrote.
“When these international locations put on their NATO hats, they insist that Transatlantic cooperation is the cornerstone of our mutual safety,” Landau posted. “However when these international locations put on their EU hats, they pursue all kinds of agendas which are typically totally antagonistic to US pursuits and safety … This inconsistency can not proceed.”
The X high quality, introduced on Friday, is the primary important enforcement motion beneath the EU’s Digital Companies Act. European regulators mentioned they cited X for a misleading blue-check verification system, insufficient transparency in promoting information, and refusal to grant researchers entry to public information.
The criticism from Landau, together with earlier objections by Rubio, U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Federal Communications Fee Chairman Brendan Carr displays Washington’s issues over the affect of European digital laws on American firms.
Rubio and Carr mentioned the high quality demonstrated bias in opposition to U.S.-based expertise companies, with Rubio calling it an assault on the American folks by international governments and an act of censorship in opposition to People on-line.
Including to the furor, billionaire entrepreneur Musk, as soon as an in depth ally of President Donald Trump earlier than a public falling out, in a Friday publish on the platform known as for the EU to be abolished.
EU officers have mentioned they’re defending customers from deception, scams, and misinformation, and mentioned X’s standing as a U.S. firm had nothing to do with the choice to levy a high quality.
The tensions are surfacing because the Trump administration indicators dramatic shifts in U.S.-Europe relations throughout the North Atlantic Treaty Group because it seeks to take care of unity amid broader geopolitical challenges.
Whereas the Trump administration has pushed for elevated European protection spending, its method has been marked by blended indicators towards NATO, starting from criticism of burden sharing to uncommon moments of reward for allied initiatives.
Landau, the No. 2 U.S. diplomat, had beforehand questioned the necessity for NATO in a June publish on X, which he later deleted.