The European Union’s top digital official wrote to Elon Musk on Monday reminding him of his legal duty to prevent the spread of “harmful content” on X, just hours before the technology billionaire interviewed Donald Trump.
“With a great audience comes great responsibility,” Thierry Breton, the bloc’s internal market commissioner, wrote on X, with the letter also outlining Musk’s obligations under EU law to combat illegal content and misinformation.
The EU is investigating X (formerly Twitter) under its landmark Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires digital companies to effectively monitor online content to protect users from harm.
“The DSA’s obligations apply to the moderation of X’s entire user community and content (which includes you, as a user with over 190 million followers), without exception or discrimination,” Breton wrote to Musk.
Breton said the warning was motivated by “the risk of amplification of potentially harmful content in the EU”, citing Musk’s upcoming Trump interview, and also referencing his recent inflammatory comments about far-right riots in the United Kingdom.
“We are monitoring potential risks associated with the dissemination of content in the EU that could incite violence, hatred and racism, in conjunction with major political or social events around the world,” he wrote.
“I and my Services will remain extremely alert to any evidence that suggests a breach of the DSA, and will not hesitate to use the full range of our means, including interim measures, if necessary to prevent serious harm to EU citizens,” Breton wrote.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has emerged as a prominent voice in US politics, but he has been accused of turning the platform formerly known as Twitter into a megaphone for right-wing conspiracy theories since acquiring it in 2022.
New analysis from the Center for Countering Digital Hate shows that Musk’s false or misleading claims about the US election have been viewed nearly 1.2 billion times on X.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)