U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday strongly criticized a €120 million fine imposed by European Union regulators on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, calling the move “a nasty one” and questioning its justification.

Speaking to reporters at a White House event, Trump said he was not convinced the European Union had valid grounds for penalizing X and warned that Europe was “going in some bad directions.” He added that he expected a full briefing on the decision later in the day.

The fine was issued by the European Union’s tech regulators, led by the European Commission, after concluding that X had breached online content and transparency rules under the bloc’s Digital Services framework. Regulators cited failures to provide researchers with access to public data, maintaining an incomplete advertising repository, and using what they described as deceptive design for the platform’s blue checkmark verification system.

Elon Musk, owner of X, publicly rejected the ruling on his platform, responding “Bullshit” to the official announcement and reposting multiple messages criticizing the decision. He also argued that freedom of speech “is the bedrock of democracy.”

Trump said Musk had not contacted him for assistance and reiterated that the European Union should “be very careful” in its actions toward American technology companies.

Senior U.S. officials joined the criticism, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Brendan Carr denouncing the move as an attack on U.S. firms.

EU officials defended the action. EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said the penalty was proportionate and emphasized that the Digital Services Act was not related to censorship. The European Commission said the rules are applied equally to all companies, regardless of nationality, and are aimed at protecting the EU’s digital and democratic standards.

The case has drawn comparisons to actions against other platforms. TikTok was charged earlier this year over failures related to its public advertising repository but avoided a fine after committing to improvements and urging regulators to apply rules consistently across platforms. (ILKHA)