BrusselsDonald Trump is a nightmare for the European Union. The president of the United States has not only declared a trade war in the European bloc and, among others, has threatened to invade sovereign community territory, but he also intends to change European legislation and even the way of life on the continent. It is an objective that the Trump administration has openly expressed and has found in the American technology magnates, who have a great influence on European public opinion, the perfect allies.
The tension between the technoligarchs and the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, has suddenly escalated this past week, but it is an offensive that the owners of these large technology companies began a long time ago. The most belligerent is X’s owner, Elon Musk, who worked in the Trump campaign and administration.
The European Commission has long denounced that the old Twitter has opaque algorithms and, therefore, the community authorities cannot control it properly. Thus, the also owner of Tesla, who sells X as a social network without an editorial line and guarantor of freedom of expression, benefits and promotes far-right content. Even Musk and his company explicitly supported the last federal elections in Germany in the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD, in its German acronym). Brussels considered it full-fledged political interference.
Although in another way, the massive message that the founder of Telegram, the Russian Pavel Dúrov, sent this Wednesday to the users of his social network against the measures announced by Pedro Sánchez is also clearly a gesture of political pressure. “Pedro Sánchez’s government is pushing for dangerous new regulations that threaten your internet freedoms […]could turn Spain into a surveillance state under the pretext of protection,” he stated in the text.
Beyond the case of Musk, the rest of the American technological oligarchs are also more discreetly engaging with Trump to get the European Union to deregulate the digital sector in the community bloc market, from which they obtain billion-dollar benefits. Often, when Brussels opens an investigation or applies a sanction because they fail to comply with European regulations, they harshly criticize the community executive and claim to be victims of European interventionism that wants to avoid oligopolies and enforce rights in digital matters.
The complaints not only come from these companies, but the Trump administration itself ruthlessly charges and calls into question the regulatory framework of an ally such as the EU and its judicial system. The last time the White House closed ranks with the technoligarchs was, of course, following a fine by the European Commission to
Apart from the United States, Brussels has also always shown concern about the pro-Russian propaganda that the Kremlin manages to spread through social networks, especially in the midst of the war in Ukraine. Nor is Trump’s good relationship with Vladimir Putin, nor the ties of the European extreme right with the Russian authoritarian regime.
A red line for the EU
Since Trump returned to the White House, he has not stopped pressuring European leaders to deregulate the European digital market, but at the moment it is a red line for the EU. European allies have given in on the trade war and on the Pentagon’s demands to raise military spending to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP). However, no European leader has shown himself even remotely open to accepting a change in regulation in the digital sector at the request of the United States.
In fact, at the end of last year, when the White House increased pressure on the EU to deregulate the digital market and even threatened new tariffs, Brussels responded forcefully and sent a clear message: in a few days it opened an investigation into WhatsApp and an Investigation into WhatsApp global turnover, around 120 million euros for failing to comply with the EU digital services law. And, since then, he has not stopped opening files against large American technology companies.
Unlike Sánchez, European leaders have generally avoided entering into dialectical battles directly with Musk and even less so with Trump. However, the EU has always made it clear that, at least until now, one of its limits is giving free rein to technoligarchs who seek to destroy community values.