The US Justice Department has moved to intervene in X's legal challenge to the European Union's first fine under the Digital Services Act (DSA), turning a regulatory dispute into an open transatlantic fight.
The department said it has filed a motion with the EU's General Court to join the two lawsuits brought by Elon Musk's company, registered as T-114/26 and T-121/26. The Commission, it argues, has unlawfully tried to "extend its regulatory authority to US companies that are not present or operating within its jurisdiction". "We will not tolerate the European Commission exceeding its regulatory authority to control American engines of innovation and economic growth," Brett Shumate of the department's civil division said in the statement, first reported by heise online.
The underlying penalty dates to December 2025, when the Commission fined X €120 million for three violations: deceiving users with the blue checkmark that used to signal a verified account, breaching advertising-transparency rules, and failing to give researchers access to platform data. X sued in February 2026, alleging an inadequate investigation, a misinterpretation of the DSA and a biased prosecution.
Since then the two sides have moved in opposite directions. X proposed changes to address the Commission's complaints, and in July Brussels accepted them, calling them an important step in the right direction; X now describes the checkmark as a premium status rather than verification. The lawsuit over the original fine, however, continues — and Washington has now joined it. The Justice Department said it coordinated with the State Department before filing and that it has "significant concerns" about how the Commission decides which companies count as liable providers of digital services.
What the intervention changes in practice is limited: the General Court decides whether the fine stands, and the US is not a party to the underlying facts. What it does signal is the direction of US tech policy in Europe. The DSA allows fines of up to 6% of global annual revenue, and the Commission has open proceedings against several large platforms; a US government willing to litigate alongside one of them raises the political cost of the next enforcement decision.
For X, the prize is the €120 million and, potentially, a precedent about how far EU rules reach companies headquartered abroad. For Brussels, the case is a test of whether the DSA can be enforced against US platforms while Washington is actively campaigning against the law — pressure that has already included diplomatic pushback against European regulators.
