The offensive has been launched, and it looks to be a serious one. Waged in the name of freedom of expression by Donald Trump and American tech giants – foremost among them Elon Musk's social media platform, X – it targets Europe's fledgling digital regulations and Brussels' competition policy, which has seen Apple, Google and Facebook fined billions of euros over recent years.
The rallying of Mark Zuckerberg – whom Trump, exasperated at having been banned from Facebook and Instagram after the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol, had, until recently, promised to incarcerate – to this fight came as a blow to the European Union. On January 7, Zuckerberg, the boss of the Meta group, also pledged his allegiance to the president-elect: "We're going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American businesses," he declared.
In announcing the end of fact-checking in the US for his group's platforms, while denouncing "censorship" by the EU, he has also adopted Musk's rhetoric. In recent weeks, Musk, who will be in charge of "government efficiency" for the incoming Trump administration, has, for his part, entered into political debates in the UK and Germany, where he is backing the far-right AfD party in the February 23 federal elections.
Concern in Brussels
On January 10, while speaking on the podcast hosted by Joe Rogan, an outspoken Trump supporter, Zuckerberg blamed the EU for having imposed "more than $30 billion" in fines on American Big Tech over the "last 10 or 20 years," comparing them to tariffs under another name. Indeed, he was counting on Trump to "defend" their interests.
The matter has been of the utmost concern in Brussels, even if the EU Commission's response has, so far, been a minimalist one. "This combination of significant technological resources and an ideological agenda is a risk for debates in our democratic societies," said a European diplomat. Indeed, the European Parliament has decided to organize a debate on Musk and the future of EU digital regulation, to be held next year.
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