EU Fines X €120 Million For Transparency Violations

European Commission fined X €120 million ($163 million) for “breaching its transparency obligations. The European Commission has imposed a €...

European Commission fined X €120 million ($163 million) for “breaching its transparency obligations.

The European Commission has imposed a €120 million penalty on X for breaching transparency obligations outlined in the Digital Services Act (DSA). This decision, announced on 5 December 2025, marks the first major regulatory sanction under the DSA and underscores the European Union’s increased scrutiny of large online platforms.

According to the Commission’s statement, X committed several serious violations. First, its system of “blue checkmark” verification was deemed deceptive because users could purchase verification status without meaningful identity verification — a practice that the Commission concluded can mislead users about account authenticity.  Second, X failed to maintain a transparent and accessible advertising repository, omitting required information such as who financed ads and what their content or targeting parameters were.

Third, X did not provide adequate access to its public data for independent researchers, thereby obstructing external scrutiny of potential misinformation, scam campaigns, or systemic risks. Under the EU's DSA, online platforms and social media must uphold transparency, accountability, and user safety. The Commission’s ruling highlights that deceptive design practices — such as presenting purchasable verification badges as authentic identity signals — contravene these obligations.  The fine breakdown reportedly attributes roughly €45 million to the blue-check violation, €35 million to ad-transparency failures, and €40 million to restricted researcher data access. 

This enforcement action has important implications for X’s operations in Europe. First, it serves as a strong precedent under the DSA, signaling that regulatory authorities are ready to impose substantial financial consequences for non-compliance. Second, it underscores growing pressure on social platforms to provide transparent structures for ads, verification, and data access — particularly in contexts where malicious actors might exploit opaque systems for scams, misinformation, or influence campaigns.

X now has a defined time window to propose corrective measures concerning the blue-check system (within 60 working days) and to reform its advertisement repository and researcher data access processes (within 90 working days), or else face further sanctions. As regulatory enforcement intensifies, X finds itself at the center of a broader European effort to hold large digital platforms accountable, enhance user protection, and safeguard transparency in online public discourse.

Musk's reaction

The tech mogul lashed out at the “bureaucratic monsters in the European Union who don’t understand innovation. They may have some grasp of legality, but they have zero understanding of how to protect innovation from heavy-handed laws that stifle development and free speech,” after his platform X was hit with a massive fine. US-based tech billionaire Elon Musk has called for the dissolution of the European Union after the bloc fined his social media platform X. 

On Friday, the European Commission fined X €120 million ($163 million) for “breaching its transparency obligations” under the 2022 Digital Services Act, which sets standards for accountability and content moderation. The ruling called the platform’s blue checkmark system ‘deceptive’ and accused it of weak advertising transparency and failing to provide required data access. 

U.S.-tech billionaire, Elon Musk.

In a series of posts on Saturday, Musk, who often accuses Brussels of imposing excessive regulations, argued that “EU bureaucracy is slowly smothering Europe to death.” “The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people,” Musk wrote. Musk, who also owns Tesla and SpaceX, has previously described the EU as a “giant cathedral to bureaucracy,” arguing that over-regulation suppresses innovation.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio criticized the ruling as “an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments.” US Vice President J.D. Vance said the EU had targeted X for “not engaging in censorship.” US Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder also condemned the move, saying Washington “opposes censorship and will challenge burdensome regulations that target US companies abroad.”

European Commission Executive Vice President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy Henna Virkkunen defended the fine, saying that “deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU.” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski reacted to Musk’s tirade by posting, “Go to Mars. There’s no censorship of Nazi salutes there,” referring to accusations that the entrepreneur had performed the salute while celebrating US President Donald Trump’s second-term inauguration in January 2025.