US entrepreneur, engineer and billionaire Elon Musk said on Friday that the European Commission had offered his platform X an “illegal secret deal” to “quietly” censor speech after the commission accused it of violating EU digital laws.
Musk wrote on X:
“The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not. We look forward to a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth.”
Musk’s statement comes in response to the European Commission saying earlier on Friday that X was in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas such as “dark schemes, advertising transparency and access to data for researchers.”
The Commission warned that if its preliminary view is confirmed, X could face heavy fines.
The European Commission firmly denied Musk’s claim, with Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton saying:
“There has never been – and will never be – any “secret deal.” With anyone.”
He said in response to Musk on X:
“To be extra clear: it’s *YOUR* team who asked the Commission to explain the process for settlement and to clarify our concerns. We did it in line with established regulatory procedures. Up to you to decide whether to offer commitments or not. That is how rule of law procedures work. See you (in court or not).”
