The United States has asked the European Union’s General Court for permission to intervene in Elon Musk’s challenge to a €120 million fine imposed on X under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
The Department of Justice said on September 24 it had filed the application in support of the actions brought by X Internet and X Holdings, registered as Case T-114/26, and by Musk personally, Case T-121/26. Both seek the annulment of the European Commission decision of December 5, 2025.
Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate, of the department’s Civil Division, said the Commission had “inappropriately attempted to expand its regulatory authority” to reach American companies that neither operate nor are present in its jurisdiction. He said Washington would not tolerate regulatory overreach aimed at American engines of innovation and growth.
The request rests on Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which allows a state to intervene where it can establish an interest in the result of a case. The General Court has still to decide whether to admit the United States.
The Justice Department said it had coordinated with the Department of State, given the implications for US-EU relations, and described the dispute as the first challenge to a DSA enforcement action to reach the General Court.
Its central objection concerns the way the Commission identified the “provider” of X for the purposes of attributing liability. The Ireland-based X Internet Unlimited Company appears in the Commission’s own register as the provider, yet the decision reached Musk as a private individual and separate American companies he owns that had no connection to the service.
Washington argued that the approach cut across the corporate veil principle, which shields shareholders from a company’s liabilities.
X is supported in Luxembourg by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, the free-speech group that has acted for the platform since it filed its appeal in February and which describes the DSA as a censorship law.
The organisation welcomed the American request and warned that, if the Commission prevailed, US companies would be markedly less willing to invest in the EU.
ADF International’s European director, Adina Portaru, said the case turned on whether the powers granted to the Commission were “compatible with the rule of law”. She said the Commission set the rules on content moderation, opened the investigations, enforced them and fixed the penalties, with no meaningful checks.
The December 2025 decision was the first non-compliance fine issued under the DSA and covered X’s advertising repository, researcher access to public data and its paid verification badges. Brussels accepted a corrective plan from the platform in July while keeping it under supervision.
