Washington Backs X in Challenge to Brussels Over Blue Tick Penalty

The US government is seeking to join Elon Musk's legal challenge to overturn a €120m (£105m) fine imposed by the European Union against X over its blue tick verification system.

In December 2025, the European Commission ruled that the platform misleads users by permitting them to purchase a blue verified check mark, concluding that the company was not meaningfully verifying the identity of account holders. The penalty marked the Commission's first official non-compliance decision under the Digital Services Act, one of two mandatory rulebooks governing online platforms across the bloc.

US Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate said on Thursday that the commission had inappropriately attempted to extend its regulatory reach to American companies beyond its jurisdiction. The Department of Justice has filed an application with the EU's General Court in support of Musk's and X's efforts to have the case dismissed. It argues that under a section of law in the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, a state may intervene in disputes before the court if it can establish an interest in the outcome.

The DOJ contends that the United States has a clear interest in ensuring any decision by the commission is applied consistently with how territorial jurisdiction is generally understood in international law. It also wishes to guard against measures that would otherwise prejudice US-headquartered digital services which contribute significantly to its economy.

Musk, who spent millions helping elect Donald Trump and other Republicans, has previously claimed that EU tech regulation inhibits progress for companies.

In a press briefing on Friday, European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said the commission was ready to defend its position in court. He added that it had a solid case at its disposal owing to the alleged breach of the Digital Services Act. The hearing and ruling are proceeding, he noted, but Brussels remains confident in the merits of its action.

In addition to its use of blue ticks, EU regulators accused X of failing to provide transparency around its advertising and denying researchers access to public data. Henna Virkkunen, the regulator's executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, said at the time the fine was issued that the commission was holding X responsible for undermining users' rights and evading accountability. Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers, she said, have no place online in the EU.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Federal Communications Commission had criticised the EU regulator, accusing it of attacking and censoring American firms. Rubio wrote in a post on X that the European Commission's fine was not merely an attack on X but on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments. His remarks were reposted by Musk, who added his agreement.

The European Commission denied targeting any specific nationality, stating that it is simply protecting its digital and democratic standards to maintain its role as a global benchmark. However, the EU is also conducting several other investigations into the platform, including one into its integrated AI assistant Grok over concerns it was used to create sexualised images of real people.