Brussels:
Elon Musk escalated a spat Saturday with the ex-EU digital chief Thierry Breton, describing him as a “tyrant of Europe” as the 2 males traded barbs on-line.
An ally of incoming US president Donald Trump, the tech billionaire has lengthy criticised the European Union’s guidelines regulating the digital area, accusing Brussels of censorship. This week Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg echoed that cost.
Musk has lately angered Europe with repeated insults of the continent’s leaders and his open help for the far-right German AfD get together forward of elections subsequent month.
His newest outburst in opposition to Breton got here after he mentioned Europe may take motion to keep away from interference in elections.
An account shared an excerpt of Breton’s interview with French broadcaster BFMTV/RMC claiming he mentioned “the EU has mechanisms to nullify a possible election victory of the AfD”, prompting Musk to rail at what he termed “the astounding absurdity of Thierry Breton as tyrant of Europe.”
Breton rejected the declare in an X publish.
“Tyrant of Europe? Wow! However No Elon Musk: the EU has NO mechanism to nullify any election anyplace in EU. By no means what is alleged within the video beneath associated solely to the applying of the DSA and its moderation obligations. Misplaced in translation… or one other faux information?”
The DSA is the landmark EU’s Digital Companies Act, which calls for platforms clamp down on unlawful content material on-line.
In Thursday’s interview, Breton mentioned Europe ought to “hold our cool and implement our legal guidelines in Europe after they danger being circumvented and after they can, if not enforced, result in interference.
“We did it in Romania and we’ll clearly should do it whether it is vital in Germany,” he mentioned.
The EU final month opened a probe into TikTok below the DSA, following allegations the platform was utilized by Russia to sway the results of Romania’s presidential election, later annulled by a high Romanian courtroom.
European regulators have additionally been probing X since December 2023, however Musk’s shut ties to Trump have raised questions on how the EU will deal with his platform and its suspected DSA violations, which may result in fines.
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)