Elon Musk isn't backing down from his fight with European regulators. On Saturday, the Tesla Inc. (TSLA) CEO posted "Time to abolish the EU" while sharing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's statement about corruption in the European Union.
Orbán didn't mince words: "The EU is drowning in corruption. Commissioners face serious charges, the Commission and the Parliament are engulfed in scandal, yet Brussels still claims the moral high ground."
The timing matters here. Musk's call for dismantling the EU came right after his social media platform X got slapped with a €120 million ($140 million) fine on Friday for violating the bloc's online content rules. Not exactly subtle timing.
Platform Terminates EU Commission's Ad Account
Things escalated further when X reportedly terminated the European Commission's advertising account on the platform. So much for maintaining business relationships with your regulators.
In a separate post that Musk reposted, he accused the Commission of gaming the system by exploiting an ad format. According to the claim, the Commission posted a link designed to trick users into thinking it was a video, artificially inflating its own reach. The irony of a regulatory body allegedly bending platform rules wasn't lost on Musk's supporters.
Standing Alone Against Censorship
Musk also endorsed a statement from DogeDesigner claiming that X "was the only platform that refused the secret censorship deal the EU offered while other platforms accepted it." His response? A simple "Yup."
The stance found support from Dutch Member of the House of Representatives Geert Wilders, who criticized the EU Commission over the fines against X. Wilders wrote: "Nobody elected you. You represent no one. You are a totalitarian institution and can't even spell the words freedom of speech. We should not accept the fining of @X, but abolish the @EU_Commission."
Musk's posts frame the EU as an illegitimate and overreaching institution, signaling a broader challenge to its regulatory authority. Whether this confrontation escalates further or reaches some resolution remains unclear, but Musk appears committed to fighting on multiple fronts rather than quietly accepting European oversight.