Elon Musk is considering taking Twitter, or X, out of Europe after EU industry chief Thierry Breton opened an investigation into his company, the first under new EU tech rules, for not doing enough to tackle the spread of disinformation following Hamas’ attack on Israel.

Breton opened the probe last week.

The online content rules known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) require X and other large online platforms to remove illegal content and to take measures to tackle the risks to public security and civic discourse.

[As I wrote at the time, the EU doesn’t have regulatory power over platforms that don’t have offices in its jurisdiction. If the EU wants Musk to suppress content on the basis of terror communications, Twitter/X should work with them — and they already do, as CEO Linda Yaccarino made clear last week. If the EU wants to force Musk to suppress political argument and dissent, however, he should just terminate the EU employees and move operations back to the US. Let the EU try blocking Twitter and deal with the political consequences that will follow. — Ed]