Barely two weeks ahead of Trump’s inauguration, Mark Zuckerberg, the head of Facebook parent company Meta, threw down the gauntlet.
“We’re seeing an ever-increasing number of laws institutionalising censorship,” he railed in a five-minute video posted across social media on January 7. “And we’re going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American businesses.”
His statement was a veiled threat directed at the EU, where increasingly stringent digital laws have already cost his interests more than a billion dollars in fines over the past few years.
In the next breath, Zuckerberg announced that he was abandoning the fact-checking programmes that have been key to fighting disinformation on both Facebook and Instagram in recent years – replacing them with voluntary “community note” systems. Although the move would apply only to the United States for now, he indicated that Europe could be next.
Zuckerberg had essentially pledged allegiance to the incoming Trump administration and its war on the mechanisms that have called out disinformation on his platforms. Moreover, he has joined X CEO Elon Musk – now one of Trump’s closest aides – in his virulent campaign against the EU’s digital rulebook.
Win-win trio
Analysts say the president-elect and the two tech giants have formed a very powerful – and potentially very dangerous – trio that is out to dismantle EU digital rules and the democratic values they were built on.
“They come from very different angles and positions into this debate, but their interests have converged,” explained José Ignacio Torreblanca, a geopolitics and technology expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, noting that they could all benefit from teaming up.
Torreblanca said that Musk, whom he described as being on an “ideological crusade” to save the world from “woke” progressives, will be handed the power to do so. Zuckerberg, on the other hand – whose moral principles Torreblanca likened to “a piece of jelly” – will be able to defend his business interests in peace. And Trump, who has been dying for worldwide attention ever since he was blocked from the world’s biggest platforms – X, Facebook and Instagram – has regained unhindered access to these global audiences.
And he no longer needs to worry about being barred or fact-checked.
Billions in EU fines
So what is Big Tech so angry about? Put simply, that Europe holds them responsible if they fail to keep user data safe or foster the spread of hate speech. EU laws require tech giants to make clear how they use any data collected from social media users, take action if harmful and illegal content (like hate speech or disinformation) is being spread via their platforms, and refrain from engaging in unfair or misleading business practices.
These rules have been years in the making. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – touted as the toughest digital security law in the world – was implemented in 2018 to ensure social media companies complied with European laws on the right to privacy.
For users, this means that the option to consent to – or reject – data collection pops up in a window whenever they visit a new website in Europe.
In the past two years, the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) have sought to regulate how tech giants behave in the very markets they dominate. Sixteen probes have since been opened, mostly involving tech giants like Meta, X, Apple, Alphabet and Google.
And the rope has been tightening.
Musk’s X is currently being investigated for a number of things, including whether its new paid-for “blue checkmark” verification system is misleading, since those users are no longer actually verified.
But according to French daily Le Monde, Zuckerberg has been feeling the most heat, with his companies facing a total of five probes: one concerns Meta forcing Facebook and Instagram users either to pay for ad-free subscriptions or consent to their data being collected.
In 2023, Meta was hit with a record €1.2 billion fine for transferring EU user data into the United States in violation of a previous court order.
Flouting regulations
In a paper named “Glitch in the matrix” that Torreblanca co-authored in December, he warned that the “new US tech agenda” under Trump would test the EU’s ability to regulate Big Tech.
And that it would target these regulations full force.
“In October, Trump vowed to not let the EU ‘take advantage of our companies’, and Vice-president elect JD Vance has also stated that the US could drop support for NATO if the EU further regulates X. As a result, the Trump administration could lobby European leaders to prevent the commission from punishing X,” he wrote.
“Moreover, if the EU does impose the fine, Trump and Vance are likely to support Musk and denounce the fines as illegitimate. Musk could also use the platform itself to mobilise citizens and far-right parties to raise the political cost for EU decision-makers pursuing the crackdown.”
When Zuckerberg appeared on Trump-supporter Joe Rogan’s podcast on January 10, he confirmed the support he expected from Trump in any face-off with the EU from now on. “And it’s one of the things that I’m optimistic about with President Trump,” Zuckerberg said, borrowing a Trump buzzword to dub the EU penalties “tariffs”.
Weaponised data
Frans Imbert-Vier, the CEO of Swiss cyber-security consulting firm UBCOM, said the EU can expect a challenge from the moment Trump walks into the White House. First off, he predicted, Musk and Zuckerberg will overlook any rules that do not originate in the United States.
“They will ignore them to such an extent that American courts won’t even respond to European court injunctions,” he said.
Imbert-Vier said the EU legal framework could be rendered essentially toothless, because even European politicians “need these social networks to survive” in today’s environment.
But the real problem, he said, would be if Big Tech firms turn their focus to harvesting user data en masse and using it to promote their own political interests.
“They’re going to go all in,” Imbert-Vier said, singling out Musk in particular for having his own political agenda for Europe that he might use these vast reams of data to realise.
Political meddling
Musk’s interest in, and interference with, European politics has already raised more than a few eyebrows.
Earlier this month he accused British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of being “complicit in the rape of Britain”, claiming the leader had refused to pursue a child grooming ring when he was the country’s chief prosecutor. In a barrage of posts on X, he called on Starmer to be imprisoned and for new UK elections to be held. In fact, the number of prosecutions of child sex abuse rose during Starmer’s tenure.
Musk has also gotten involved in politics in Germany – which is due to hold snap elections next month – throwing his weight behind the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), claiming it is “the only party that can save Germany”. He followed up by hosting an exclusive livestream event on X for AfD’s leader.
French President Emmanuel Macron criticised such interference in European politics during a recent speech to French ambassadors, without mentioning Musk by name.
“Ten years ago, who would have imagined that the owner of one of the world’s largest social networks would be supporting a new international reactionary movement and intervening directly in elections, including in Germany,” Macron said.
Read moreEurope’s leaders have had enough of Musk’s meddling, but can they stop him?
Master of puppets
For his part, Imbert-Vier said he was not surprised. As soon as Musk allied himself with Trump back in July, he said he and his colleagues knew Musk was looking to become the puppet master of the world.
“Basically he offered him (Trump) a value proposition by saying, ‘I will help you become the most important person in the world’. But that was to stroke Trump’s ego. What Musk was really thinking was, ‘Because I have data and the power to manipulate, I will become the most powerful man in the world’,” Imbert-Vier said.
Data, he warned, is one of the most dangerous tools in the box when it comes to influencing elections.
Imbert-Vier said Europeans risk “getting sucked into a system where they don’t think anymore and just become submissive, consumer sheep for hire”.
The only remedy, he said, is for Europe to stand its ground and eventually replace US tech platforms with its own versions.
In mid-January, after the Trump-Musk-Zuckerberg triumvirate had taken hold, the Financial Times reported that the European Commission had decided to “reassess” its investigations into several US tech groups and their alleged digital breaches.
The move could result in the probes being scaled back or even shelved.
“It’s going to be a whole new ballgame with these tech oligarchs so close to Trump and using that to pressurise us,” a senior EU diplomat briefed on the review told the newspaper. “So much is up in the air right now.”
‘Power and money’
Italian centre-left lawmaker Brando Benifei, who spearheaded the EU’s first rulebook on artificial intelligence (AI) and now co-heads the European Parliament’s AI monitoring group, said that the Musk-led trio want to quash the bloc’s regulations for fear that similar stringent rules might spread to other parts of the world.
“They don’t want that to spread because it brings responsibility, accountability and transparency to the activity of the social media,” he said.
“They simply want power and money to buy information and influence. But that’s not democratic balance, and we do not want that in Europe.”
Asked how the EU might respond to any type of political blackmail, he took a vaguer tone, saying the bloc would have to work with the US to find compromises “on issues like trade, defence, energy, environment”.
“It will not be easy,” he said. “But we have rules. We want to protect our democracies in the digital space.”
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