EU Commission to add Musk’s German AfD interview to ongoing probe

The European Commission will analyse whether the live conversation scheduled to take place on X on Thursday between the tech giant’s owner Elon Musk and Alice Weidel, leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, is in breach of the EU’s platform rules as part of an ongoing probe into the platform, a spokesperson confirmed. 

The European Commission opened formal proceedings into X’s compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA) in December 2023 on suspected breaches in areas such as civic discourse. That probe has not been wrapped up.

Musk’s recent endorsement of the AfD, including an op-ed for a German newspaper, sparked controversy a few weeks before the country’s federal election on 23 February. German government officials accused Musk of trying to influence the upcoming vote.

“Nothing in the DSA prohibits any platform to have a live stream and to express personal opinions. What is very clear, what we will look at in the context of the current proceedings is whether the platform operates within the legal boundaries of the DSA and if it has assessed the risks,” a spokesperson for the European Commission said today. 

“The Commission services, together with the German Digital Services Coordinator and with Very Large Online Platforms including X – will host a roundtable on 24 January to discuss risks ahead of the elections,” the spokesperson said.

Under the DSA, which entered into force in August 2023, the largest online platforms are obliged to mitigate potential risks such as disinformation.

Last August, Musk squabbled with the then EU internal market chief Thierry Breton, who urged the X owner to comply with legal obligations under the EU’s digital rulebook hours before the billionaire interviewed US Republican candidate Donald Trump live on his platform.

Musk poured an estimated $200 million (€191 million) into Trump’s re-election campaign and is now set to get a government advisory role in the upcoming Trump administration.

Though no longer within the Commission, Breton has reacted to news of the forthcoming discussion on X with Weidel with a post on social media in which he said that Weidel  would derive a competitive advantage in the campaign over her rivals as a result and “that your counterpart should, once again, fully respect all its obligations under our EU law, particularly during this exercise as already publicly expressed in comparable situations, notably last summer.”