EU expands investigation into Musk’s X over illegal content

As Elon Musk’s geopolitical influence grows because of his closeness to President-elect Donald J. Trump, regulators in Europe have faced questions about whether to scale back an investigation into X, the social media network that Mr. Musk owns.

On Friday, EU officials said they were not withdrawing.

Regulators in Brussels said they would expand an investigation into X for potential violations of a law called the Digital Services Act that aims to crack down on online disinformation and illegal content. Officials said they had ordered X to hand over internal documents about the company’s recommendation algorithm, as well as provide access to data that would allow regulators to study the platform’s content moderation policies and understand why material on certain accounts might go viral.

“We are committed to ensuring that every platform operating in the EU respects our legislation, which aims to make the online environment fair, safe and democratic for all European citizens,” said Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission’s executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy.

X did not respond to a request for comment.

The Digital Services Act, passed in 2022, gives regulators broad powers to force social media companies to check their platforms for hate speech, misinformation and illegal content. Companies that do not comply can be fined up to 6 percent of global turnover.

The European Union launched an investigation into X more than a year ago, accusing the company of failing to address illegal content and disinformation. The investigation came after Mr. Musk’s dramatic scaling back of X’s content moderation policy.

The incremental development announced on Friday is more significant because it shows that European regulators are pushing ahead despite Mr. Musk’s ties to the incoming Trump administration.

The X investigation has highlighted a growing transatlantic divide on the issue of freedom of expression. In the United States, the First Amendment gives broad protection to even the most offensive things people can say, and Mr. Musk and Vice President JD Vance have criticized EU laws as a form of government censorship. European officials see some restrictions on speech as a necessary way to protect democracy and religious and ethnic minority groups.

More fights loom. Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, is also under investigation for violating the Digital Services Act. Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s CEO, recently criticized the European Union when he announced that the company would end its fact-checking program in the United States and end some global restrictions on what people can say on topics such as immigration and transgender rights.

EU officials have not indicated when the investigation into X will end. On Friday, regulators ordered the company to preserve internal documents and other information that could be part of the investigation until the end of the year.