Polish FM tells Elon Musk to 'go to Mars' amid his call for abolition of EU
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has suggested that Elon Musk should fly to Mars after the US tech billionaire called for dismantling of the European Union.
On December 5, the European Commission (EC), the EU's executive arm, fined the X platform, owned by Musk, EUR 120 million for breaching the EU's transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA). Musk has strongly condemned the penalty as regulatory overreach and published a series of X posts criticising the bloc.
"How long before the EU is gone? AbolishTheEU," read one of them.
Sikorski responded to Musk's comments on X on Saturday evening.
"Go to Mars. There's no censorship of Nazi salutes there," he wrote, apparently referring to the controversial gesture made by Musk at the US President Donald Trump's inauguration event in January. Musk's SpaceX is also actively working towards establishing a self-sufficient city on Mars, utilising its Starship rockets to ultimately transport cargo and people to the Red Planet.
Sikorski also shared a screenshot of another post in which Musk wrote that "The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people."
This prompted Sikorski's further response on X: "If anyone still had doubts about who all this anti-EU talk about sovereignty serves. Those who want to profit from sowing hatred and those who want to conquer Europe," he wrote.
As part of legal scrutiny against X over the past two years, the EC concluded that Musk's platform violates three provisions of the DSA through the misleading use of "blue ticks" for verification, a lack of a transparent ad repository, and non-compliance with data sharing for research.
Trump's administration officials and Trump himself have repeatedly attacked the EU for penalising US technology companies. On Tuesday, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said that the EU should make its regulation of the tech sector more "balanced" in exchange for a reduction of US import tariffs.
US Vice President JD Vance has criticised European free speech regulations and accused European countries of censorship. "The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage," he wrote on X on Thursday. (PAP)
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