Brussels has criticized Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton for going rogue in his threats against Elon Musk, independently sending a contentious censorship threat letter to Elon Musk, owner of the social media platform X.
The letter threatened consequences if the platform allowed content that could “seriously harm” EU citizens. This correspondence, unveiled just hours before Musk was scheduled to host a significant interview with US presidential candidate Donald Trump on the same platform, was reportedly dispatched without the endorsement of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen or other commissioners. The Commission stated that both “the timing and the wording of the letter were neither coordinated or agreed with the president nor with the [commissioners].”
Breton, acting without consultation, seems to embody the lone wolf approach within the pro-censorship EU framework, often adopting his own threatening distinctive strategies. As one EU official who preferred anonymity to the Financial Times expressed, “Thierry has his own mind and way of working and thinking.” This incident underscores the tension between regulatory enforcement and the autonomy of individual commissioners within the EU.
The Commission is actively examining the role of X, previously known as Twitter, under the stringent parameters of the 2022 censorship law, the Digital Services Act. This act was specifically designed to curb speech on vast social media networks. The ongoing probe focuses on the propagation of illegal content and the manipulation of information on the platform, with the Commission noting, “The [investigation] on dissemination of illegal content and information manipulation is ongoing, we are looking into it, and of course, everything that happens on the platform feeds into this assessment.”
Breton’s decision to issue the letter, which coincided with Musk’s interview with Trump, was described by aides as a calculated “trigger point.” As the designated overseer of the Digital Services Act’s enforcement, Breton felt compelled to remind Musk of this looming threat. He stressed the importance of such measures against “recent examples of public unrest brought about by the amplification of content that promotes hatred, disorder, incitement to violence, or certain instances of disinformation.”
