Back in 2012, the convention of giving scandals names with a “-gate” suffix reached its inevitable nadir when a U.K. government minister swore at a police officer guarding the main gate at Downing Street, thus giving birth to “Gategate.” So, with Brexit having had a similar impact on the English language as Watergate once did, should we be shaking our heads at…Xexit?
According to Insider, Elon Musk has discussed pulling X out of the European Union because of its new Digital Services Act, which is partly concerned with forcing big online platforms to crack down on disinformation. Musk strenuously denied the report in an X post this morning, calling it “utterly false.”
But even if Musk doesn’t intend to turn his back on the EU, enforcement of the DSA may not leave him with much of a choice if X sticks to its current trajectory. Musk has a strong pro-free-speech stance and—thanks to cost-cutting—not a lot of moderators, so X is more relaxed about disinformation than most of its peers. This has been particularly evident since Hamas attacked Israel, with the resulting flood of disinformation on X last week earning the company the first-ever DSA investigation.
If the probe turns out badly for X, the company could be fined as much as 6% of its global revenues, which would not help CEO Linda Yaccarino’s quest to achieve profitability early next year. But that’s only half the story—for repeated and serious DSA violations, the EU could outright ban X. Musk may have to decide between backing down or walking away. So far, he seems to enjoy goading EU digital chief Thierry Breton, claiming a week ago that he has no idea what disinformation his nemesis is talking about.
Before discussing the implications of a potential European withdrawal, I urge you to take a minute to watch this suddenly-hilarious video, from May 2022, in which Musk stands alongside Breton and nods along in agreement with the sheer awesomeness of the DSA. “It’s pretty much what you think we should do with the platform?” asks Breton. “Yeah, I think it’s exactly aligned with my thinking,” enthuses Musk. “I agree with everything you say, really.”
Which makes me wonder if Musk actually listened to anything Breton said. But anyway, back to the present.
Xexit (I don’t know how to pronounce that but it looks good) would obviously have a negative hit on X’s ad revenues, given that the EU is the world’s third-largest economy. It would also put a major crimp in X’s plans to become an “everything app” in the vein of WeChat—though there might be a plausible argument for focusing that pivot on North America first, to make for a leaner operation.
But for Europeans, it would be quite a blow. Although there’s an ongoing exodus away from X—a Xexodus, if you will—many people do still like to use the app, and it’s particularly popular in policy circles. A lot of lawmakers would lose their megaphone of choice, which may explain why Breton just set up an account on Bluesky.
X’s departure would also suggest an uncomfortable trend. Meta’s three-and-a-half-month-old X clone Threads has still not launched in the EU, reportedly because of local regulations. In that case, it’s less about the DSA than it is about the antitrust and privacy implications of Threads accounts being tied to Instagram, but the end result would be the same: Europeans can’t play with the same things their American friends can play with. Those who prefer microblogging to TikTok or Insta-style social media would be mostly limited to Bluesky and Mastodon—which are perfectly sufficient services in my opinion, but others may disagree.
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David Meyer
