Over one billion US dollars: EU is said to be planning gigantic DSA penalty against X

The EU Commission has further advanced the investigations of possible violations of the short message endings X of Elon Musk against the Digital Services Act (DSA) and is said to prepare a massive punishment. At least the New York Times, citing anonymous sources, reports that, according to which there is even a penalty of more than one billion euros in the room. The regulation provides for a maximum of 6 percent of the global sales as a punishment, which would not come to this sum at X. In Brussels, however, it is considered to use a way to include further directly controlled companies of the owner to calculate the punishment. In the case of Musk that would be SpaceX.

Hard argument behind the scenes

The fact that the EU Commission assumes that X will violate the DSA under Musk became known last summer. Among other things, it is about dealing with that blue hook that paying users receive, but which was previously used for verification. Furthermore, the Commission accuses the social network lack of transparency in advertising and lack of support for science. According to the US newspaper the investigations after Donald Trump’s victory were slowed down in the US presidential election and only accelerated again in view of the trade conflict that he started.

The procedure against X is the first important attempt to enforce the specifications of the digital service act and has already developed into a point of dispute with the new US government. According to the report, the company submitted hundreds of contradictions behind the scenes that the EU Commission edited. In summer, Elon Musk announced that every punishment decided to fight every punishment and in public. X has now renewed this announcement itself. A source has explained to the New York Times that the intended punishment could also be so enormous because it should be used to set up an example and other corporations are to be held by its own DSA violations.

The DSA has been fully effective for a year and obliges platforms on the Internet to produce more transparency about the moderation of the content and advertising. The most extensive duties apply to very large online platforms (VLOPS), X has been considered one since April 2023. Because Musk took the service from the stock exchange, only estimates are known for sales under his leadership – X is subject to Brussels towards information. The sales are decisive for determining a possible punishment. A few weeks ago it was said that X 2024 generated half as much as in the last year before the takeover. That would be about $ 2.2 billion and therefore a maximum punishment of just over $ 100 million. The EU Commission now threatens with significantly more.