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Elon Musk’s X Slapped With $140M Fine Over ‘Deceptive’ Blue Checkmarks

Regulators say paid badges misled users, while enabling impersonators and “malicious actors.”

Regulators have hit Elon Musk’s X with a $140 million penalty for “deceptive” blue checkmarks that risked exposing its users to scams.

Musk, 54, was slapped with a 120 million euro ($140 million) fine by the European Commission, which said the platform “deceives users” in a statement announcing the decision. Authorities concluded that X’s paid blue checkmarks use “deceptive design practices” that leave people vulnerable to fraud and manipulation. It’s the first non-compliance ruling under the European Union’s new Digital Services Act.

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The decision follows a probe opened two years ago into the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Regulators said selling badges without meaningful identity verification makes it harder for users to judge authenticity and enables impersonators and “malicious actors” on the platform. They also faulted X for an ad-transparency database that’s undermined by design constraints and delays, and for imposing “unnecessary barriers” on researchers seeking public data—both violations of the law’s transparency obligations.

The Associated Press reported that the move is likely to irk President Donald Trump, whose administration has railed against EU digital rules and threatened reprisals.

Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, was scathing in his response to the ruling. “Once again, Europe is fining a successful U.S. tech company for being a successful U.S. tech company. Europe is taxing Americans to subsidize a continent held back by Europe’s own suffocating regulations,” he wrote on X.

The blue-check sanction caps years of chaos sparked by Musk’s 2022 decision to let anyone buy verification, a move that fueled a wave of impersonations and forced a rollback.

Musk then said in November that year that he was placing the relaunch of “Blue Verified” on ice “until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation,” after trolls used paid badges to mimic brands and public figures.

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In Friday’s decision, regulators itemized three breaches. Aside from the “deceptive” checkmark system, they were failures in a comprehensive, searchable ad library and an obstruction of researcher access to public data used to study platform risks.

The enforcement highlights the DSA’s push to make large platforms catalog advertisers, disclose their targeting practices, and open their data to vetted academics.

Henna Virkkunen, the bloc’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security, and democracy, said “deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads, and shutting out researchers have no place online,” and praised the DSA for protecting users.

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X did not immediately respond to requests for comment from AP or the Daily Beast.

Regulators indicated wider investigations into X’s systems were ongoing and warned that failure to comply within set deadlines could trigger further penalties.

The ruling comes amid parallel transparency actions affecting other platforms under the same law.

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Tom LatchemLead Global Correspondent

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