Formerly known as Twitter
Elon Musk certainly knows how to make money and how to lose it too. But his stewardship of Twitter raises far larger issues than his business acumen.
Should massively important sources of information be run by billionaires without any oversight or the insistence that certain standards must be met?
The answer as far as the EU is concerned is no. It has written to Mr. Musk demanding he clean up his act. False news, false images and false claims have flooded onto X since the Hamas attack on Israel.
Opinions are being formed permanently and even policies decided on complete disinformation.
Mr Musk’s reply so far has been to tell the EC to point out what is wrong, their response, quite rightly, is that this is his job.
The EU has the power to ban X and insist it pays massive fines of 6% of X’s revenues, that means Mr Musk can try to ignore the EU or patronise it but he cannot do it for very long.
It goes to show just how powerful the EU is, it is big enough and serious enough to hold even Elon Musk to account. Very few other governments would dare or care to, I doubt if the UK government would but then the EU has principles, and it talks quietly and carries a very big stick.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
By Jonty Bloom Media