‘Europe Has To Be Very Careful’: Trump Issues Stern Warning After EU Fines Elon Musk’s X

President Donald Trump warned European countries on Monday after the European Commission fined X, Elon Musk’s social media company, $140 million.

The European Commission announced penalties against X last Friday, accusing the platform of violating Europe’s far-reaching Digital Services Act, which goes after what it deems as illegal content and misinformation on social media. Trump was asked about the fine during a White House roundtable and appeared surprised when he was told about the European Union’s action.

“That’s a nasty one. Elon has not called me to ask for help on that one,” Trump said, adding, “I don’t think it’s right. I don’t see how they can do that.”

Trump said that he would receive a “full report” on the issue and address it further at a later time.

“Look, Europe has to be very careful,” the president continued. “There doing a lot of things. … Europe is going in some bad directions. It’s very bad for the people.”

Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have already blasted the European Union over the fine, with Rubio arguing that the targeting of X is “an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments.”

The European Commission’s top complaint against X on Friday was that the social media company allows any user to “obtain the ‘verified’ status without the company meaningfully verifying who is behind the account, making it difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with.” Musk shot back at the commission’s complaint, saying that his goal with X’s verification system “was to democratize verification, rather than have it be controlled by a group of biased elites!”

After the European Commission announced the fine, X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, accused the bloc of exploiting a bug in X’s platform for advertisements, which extended the reach of the commission’s video announcing its action against X. The social media company then “terminated” the commission’s ad account.

“The irony of your announcement: You logged into your dormant ad account to take advantage of an exploit in our Ad Composer — to post a link that deceives users into thinking it’s a video and to artificially increase its reach,” Bier posted. “As you may be aware, X believes everyone should have an equal voice on our platform. However, it seems you believe that the rules should not apply to your account. Your ad account has been terminated.”

X surged in popularity in Europe after the European Commission’s fine, with the social media platform “seeing record-breaking downloads,” according to Musk.