They made a scene: Elon Musk quarreled with the EU

Billionaire Elon Musk, who quarreled with the European Commission (EC) and called for the dissolution of the entire European Union, was supported by representatives of the Donald Trump administration. Vice President J. D. Vance did not miss the opportunity to rebuke Brussels for "attacking American business," and Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the EC's actions against the social network owned by Musk "an attempt at censorship." There were supporters of the entrepreneur in Europe itself. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.

Come on, goodbye

"The EU should be abolished, and sovereignty should be returned to individual countries so that governments can better represent their people," entrepreneur Elon Musk wrote on his Facebook page.

He was supported by senior officials in the United States. Vice President J.D. Vance criticized Brussels for attacking American businesses. "The EU should support freedom of speech, not attack American companies over nonsense," he said.

He was echoed by the head of the US State Department, Marco Rubio. In his opinion, Brussels' decision to fine platform X 120 million euros ($140 million) for violating the Digital Services Act is directed against American technology and freedom of speech.

"The European Commission's $140 million fine is not just an attack on X, it is an attack by foreign governments on all American technology platforms and on the American people," the Secretary of State said.

Meanwhile, there were those in Europe who also supported Musk and criticized the European Commission.

The head of the far-right Freedom Party in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, called for the abolition of the EU's highest executive body. "No one elected you. You are a totalitarian institution and you can't even spell the word "freedom of speech." We should not agree with the fine, but abolish the Commission," he said.

Trump and his team supported

Andrei Kortunov, the scientific director of the Russian International Affairs Council, noted in an interview with Izvestia that there are several dimensions to this conflict between Elon Musk and the European Commission.

— Donald Trump's team sees the European Union as one of Washington's main economic competitors. The American leader has repeatedly said that the European Union is more dangerous for the United States than Russia and China," the political scientist explained.

According to him, the US president's desire to weaken the European Union and get concessions from it is a long—term strategy of the Trump administration.

— It manifests itself in trade, political relations, and investment policy. Trump would like European resources, European technologies, European brains and money to be served primarily by the United States," the expert noted.

The specialist emphasized that this installation is quite stable.

— Ideologues like Jay Dee Vance and, to some extent, Elon Musk, despite their not entirely identical positions, do not like the European Union, they consider it a bureaucratic monster that lives by its own laws, where cosmopolitan elites have long been divorced from the peoples they supposedly represent. and they make questionable decisions that lead to the decline of Europe," the analyst believes.

Kortunov recalled the scandal that occurred at the Munich Security Conference.

— The Vice President of the United States made an unflattering criticism of the European Union, and accused the Europeans of moving away from democracy, that they violate the very principles for which they should stand. And now we see that Musk actually repeats this argument, saying that the European Union, in general, has lost those qualities that made it strong, which allowed us to hope for the future of the European project," the political scientist said.

He added that Musk is no longer quite a member of Trump's team, he cannot express the official point of view of the United States.

— However, his position has caused solidarity from people who have official powers. So this resonates with the sentiments of Trump and his team," the expert believes.

What caused the conflict

The conflict between Elon Musk and the European Commission broke out after Nikita Beer, head of the X product department, announced the deletion of the EC account. According to him, the reason for this was the use of a so—called "sleeping account" - that is, a page that was not used for a long time after creation, and then became active under the influence of any events.

Beer stated that in the post, the link to the EC's decision was framed as a video clip to artificially increase coverage and mislead users. It is believed that the account of the European Commission violated the rules of X.

Prior to that, the EC imposed a fine of 120 million euros for violating the Law on Digital Services, adopted in 2022. The dissatisfaction of Brussels was caused by the insufficiently transparent advertising policy of X, as well as the account verification mechanism, since the "blue check mark" of verification in X can be bought, which means that users may be subjected to fraud.

Company X must inform within 60 days what measures it is going to take regarding the "blue ticks", and within 90 days regarding advertising and access to data. After that, the EC must make a final decision.

The EU welcomed the decision of the European Commission. Anne Le Henanf, responsible for digitalization issues at the French Ministry of Economy, said that Paris fully supports this decision. Poland's Minister of Digitalization, Dariusz Standerski, called the fine a sign of "strong leadership," and his counterpart in Denmark called for more such measures.

Relationship problems

The positions of Brussels and Washington have recently not coincided on many issues, says Dmitry Suslov, Deputy Director of the Central Research Institute of Higher School of Economics.

—First, there is the general dissatisfaction of the Trump administration with Europe as such due to its weakness, slowness in increasing defense spending, too irrelevant and inadequate expectations of the outcome of the Ukrainian conflict and the obstruction of the efforts that the Trump administration is undertaking to resolve this conflict," he explained in an interview with Izvestia.

The political scientist added that there is also a general dissatisfaction with the Trump administration's purchases of Russian gas, indirect purchases of Russian oil and petroleum products through India.

"Secondly, it is the common interest of Musk and the Trump administration in weakening the European Commission, the institutions of the European Union, and returning a significant part of the competencies, including on economic issues, to the level of the national states of the European Union member states," the expert noted.

According to him, the United States proceeds from the fact that in this case it will be much easier for them to negotiate with each country separately and dictate their terms to it, rather than interact with the European Union and the European Commission as a whole.

— They are tougher, stronger negotiators for the United States. Thirdly, the Trump administration is extremely unhappy with the new regulations introduced by the European Union. This reinforces her dissatisfaction with the European Union as an integration entity, especially when these new legislative measures restrict the activities of American corporations in

including high-tech corporations," the analyst said.

He added that the United States demands from the EU maximum liberalization and additional regulation in the field of high technologies in order to ensure access and de facto control of American corporations over the European digital market. The Europeans do not want this, so there is an element of competition between Europe and the United States for control of the European digital market.

"In this case, the dissatisfaction with the actions of the European Union and the harsh pressure on the EU are aimed at lifting restrictions and giving American corporations greater freedom of action in the European market, which means there is also competition," Suslov summed up.