WASHINGTON: Elon Musk clapped back Saturday at the European Union after it hit the tech tycoon&#39;s X social media platform with a major fine, telling his 230 million online followers that the EU should be &quot;abolished.&quot;&nbsp;Following a high-profile probe seen as a test of the EU&#39;s resolve to police Big Tech, the social media platform owned by the world&#39;s richest person was slapped with a &euro;120 million ($140 million) fine on Friday for violating the bloc&#39;s digital rules.&nbsp;The penalty was swiftly criticized by the US administration of Donald Trump, who, as president, aligned with Musk on a contentious effort to slash the federal workforce and cut spending, before the two fell out.&nbsp;Musk himself weighed in after the fine was announced, posting on his X account: &quot;The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people.&quot;&nbsp;When a user reposted Musk&#39;s comment, he responded, &quot;I mean it. Not kidding.&quot;&nbsp;&quot;I love Europe, but not the bureaucratic monster that is the EU,&quot; he added in another post.&nbsp;The fine against X was the first imposed by the European Commission under its Digital Services Act (DSA) on content.&nbsp;The Commission said X breached the DSA&#39;s transparency obligation.&nbsp;The violations include the deceptive design of the platform&#39;s &quot;blue checkmark&quot; for supposedly verified accounts and its failure to provide public data access to researchers, it said.&nbsp;X had also failed to be sufficiently transparent about its advertising, the Commission added.

Artificial Intelligence

Elon Musk criticized the EU after X was fined €120 million for breaching the Digital Services Act, citing misleading verification and lack of transparency. Musk called for abolishing the EU, favoring national sovereignty over bureaucracy.

After fine against X, Musk says EU 'should be abolished'

SAN FRANCISCO: Elon Musk has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to settle a dispute with four former Twitter executives over their dismissal on the day he acquired the social network, now known as X, a court filing said on Wednesday. When the world&#39;s richest man purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022, he immediately fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and top legal officers Vijaya Gadde and Sean Edgett, accusing them of gross negligence and willful misconduct. &lsquo;Rushing the acquisition&rsquo;The four executives sued in federal court in San Francisco in March 2024, seeking $128 million. They alleged they were dismissed without cause and that Musk then tried unsuccessfully to fabricate grievances against them. They also accused him of rushing the Twitter acquisition to deprive them of $200 million in stock options due the following day. The settlement amount Musk is not specified in the provisional agreement submitted to a judge. Subject to conditions&nbsp;It remains subject to several conditions. If those conditions are not met, the lawsuit will resume on October 31. The turbulent 2022 acquisition saw nearly two-thirds of Twitter&#39;s workforce laid off and triggered multiple lawsuits from former employees, clients and contractors. In late August, Musk and X agreed to settle a class action and individual lawsuits filed by thousands of employees seeking severance payments. In March, the billionaire transferred ownership of X to his generative artificial intelligence startup, xAI.

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The world’s richest man settles with four former Twitter executives, fired during his 2022 acquisition, for an undisclosed amount. They sued for $128 million, alleging wrongful termination. The agreement is provisional, pending court conditions.

Musk settles with fired Twitter execs for undisclosed sum

BENGALURU: Social media giant X warned on Monday that an Indian court ruling allowing police to issue &quot;arbitrary&quot; content removal orders through a government portal threatens free expression.&nbsp;The state high court in Karnataka &mdash; which includes tech-city Bengaluru &mdash; dismissed a plea last week filed by X against the government portal that it alleged was being used to censor content.&nbsp;The government says its online portal Sahyog &mdash; meaning &quot;cooperate&quot; in Hindi &mdash; helps automate the process of sending government notices to content intermediaries such as X and Facebook.&nbsp;&quot;It aims to create a safe cyber space for the citizens of India by facilitating the removal or disabling of access to any unlawful online information,&quot; it says.&nbsp;But X said the portal &quot;enables officers to order content removal based solely on allegations of &#39;illegality,&#39; without judicial review or due process for the speakers, and threatens platforms with criminal liability for non-compliance.&quot;&nbsp;It will &quot;allow millions of police officers to issue arbitrary takedown orders,&quot; and &quot;infringes Indian citizens&#39; constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression,&quot; X added.&nbsp;The Karnataka high court said last week that X&#39;s plea was &quot;without merit&quot; and that social media was not exempt from regulation.&nbsp;&quot;Unregulated speech, under the guise of liberty, becomes a license for lawlessness,&quot; the order read.&nbsp;The court said that while X followed takedown orders in the United States, it had refused to follow similar orders in India. X said it would appeal the ruling.&nbsp;In 2023, the Karnataka state high court fined X, then called Twitter, $61,000 after dismissing its plea challenging orders to remove comments and accounts critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi&#39;s government.&nbsp;Rights groups say freedom of expression is under broad threat in India, which is now at 151 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index.&nbsp;India has more than 900 million internet users, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India.&nbsp;China has more internet users, but India is open to US tech companies.

Elon Musk, X, social media ban, free speech

Asia

The Indian government says its online portal Sahyog — meaning "cooperate" in Hindi — helps automate the process of sending government notices to content intermediaries such as X and Facebook.

Articles tagged with "Twitter"

After fine against X, Musk says EU 'should be abolished'

Musk settles with fired Twitter execs for undisclosed sum

X says Indian online takedown platform threatens free speech