She admits she’s never met him, but she knows Elon Musk struggles with evil: top European Commission figure makes latest strike in an ongoing battle between the ‘X’ owner and the European Union.
Outgoing European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová told Politico on Wednesday that the world’s richest man is a “promoter of evil”, because he does not meet European Union ambitions for censorship on the X, formerly known as Twitter, platform he owns.
The Czech politician, who has been a senior figure in the European Union for over a decade fired the latest shots in a long-rumbling battle of wills between Europe and Musk, over their desire to see Brussels rules triumph over the billionaire’s personal vision of freedom of speech. Previous outbursts have not always gone so well, including for EU censorship tsar Thierry Breton, the main protagonist in this struggle, who was forced out of his post last month after clashing with Musk.
Jourová said: “We started to relativize evil, and he’s helping it proactively. He’s the promoter of evil” and said X is the “main hub for spreading antisemitism now”. The politician admitted she’d never met Musk, yet nevertheless was certain she knew his character. She told the publication: “even without this personal meeting, I would say that out of all the bosses I met, he is the only one who is not able to recognize good and evil.”
It’s ‘scary’ for social media companies to decide what is right to have on their platforms, Jourová said, stating they have “monstrous power in their hands… I’m really scared by digital platforms in bad hands”, clearly implying this monstrous power should be in the hands of the European Union instead.
Within hours of the comments being published, Musk appeared to make an indirect rebuttal, posting a graphic claiming to express that “anti-semitic/anti-Israel views” were more highly correlated with other social media platforms than X. Responding more directly later, Musk wrote somewhat churlishly: “If she wants to know what evil looks like, she just needs a mirror”.
These remarks came just hours after she, in other comments, said the European Union needed to launch a “whole of society” approach to clamping down on speech, saying this would involve at the least: “strategic communication, pre-bunking of the disinformation narratives, effective law enforcement for the digital space, strong independent media as well as the research, fact-checking and critical thinking.”
Jourová’s comments this week are just the latest from a politician who has shown a long-term predisposition towards state control and censorship to achieve her policy goals. Breitbart reported in 2018 on her suggestion of media regulation to tackle the rise of “bad nationalism” in the bloc, and then in 2023 when she clashed with Musk’s then-Twitter for not aligning itself sufficiently with European Union rules on tackling “disinformation”.
Later that year Jourová criticised Musk again, saying she found it “disappointing” his platform still hadn’t fallen into line. She said then: “…I would really do wish to explain to Mr. Musk our philosophy that we are protectors of freedom of speech, protectors of freedom of expression… But freedom of speech in the EU is not unlimited.”
