‘Dependencies have become liabilities’
In early February, the Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit raided X’s French headquarters as part of an investigation into suspected illegalities, including data harvesting and complicity in the possession of child sexual abuse images. French authorities summoned X’s owner, Elon Musk, and former CEO Linda Yaccarino to testify. Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office is separately probing X’s AI chatbot Grok over its “potential to produce harmful sexualised image and video content.”
Musk shot back, calling the raid a “political attack.”
This follows a series of high-profile clashes between European authorities and American tech companies. Since the European Union’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act took effect in 2023 and 2024, respectively, the EU has hit American tech companies with serious fines. In April, it fined Meta and Apple a combined €700 million. In September, it fined Google €2.95 billion for violating antitrust rules. And in December, it fined X €120 million.
Last summer, Donald Trump warned Europe, “Show respect to America and our amazing Tech Companies or, consider the consequences!” In December, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that unless the EU and European states back off, “the United States will have no choice but to begin using every tool at its disposal to counter these unreasonable measures.” Days later, the U.S. State Department imposed visa sanctions on five European officials, including former EU commissioner Thierry Breton, who spearheaded the Digital Services Act.
Now what?
Anu Bradford is a professor at Columbia Law School and the author of The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World and Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology. Bradford says American tech giants have gone from reluctantly complying with European regulations to actively fighting them. For years, these companies would comply—they might lobby against laws or challenge them in court, but they eventually fell into line. Now, the Europeans have begun to realize that fines alone won’t bring truly enormous companies to heel, and they’re considering more radical measures. Meanwhile, the American tech companies have realized they can’t bend European regulation on their own—so they’ve enlisted the White House. And behind all of it: a growing European realization that reliance on American tech may have become a strategic vulnerability …
Gustav Jönsson: Why is the European Union in conflict with the United States over tech?
