Musk has hinted in recent weeks that his social media platform According to a person familiar with the matter, Musk has become increasingly frustrated with having to comply with the European Union’s Digital Services Act. He has discussed simply removing the app's availability in the region, or blocking users in the EU from accessing it. This would be similar to how Meta currently blocks Europeans from using its new app Threads.
This isn't the first time Musk has floated the idea of drastically limiting the scope of the app. Two other people familiar with Twitter said that almost immediately after acquiring Twitter, Musk proposed limiting Twitter's operations to the United States as a cost-cutting measure.
"That's part of the reason why he's dismantling international teams at every opportunity," a person familiar with the matter said, referring to part of the massive layoffs Musk has made at Twitter since taking over.
While Musk has not yet pulled X out of any country, one of the people said the company has essentially no employees in Europe as offices in Paris, Madrid and Berlin have been closed. However, the Dublin office remains open, as does London.
Europe accounts for about 9% of X's global monthly active users, according to Apptopia, although the company's daily active user numbers have fallen significantly over the past three months, down 10% to 40% across the region. Downloads and usage of the app are declining in almost all countries.
At least employees of Company X have understood that any of Musk's ideas, no matter how illogical they seem, can quickly become a reality. Charging people to use the platform was also one of his earliest ideas and is now being rolled out. A person familiar with the matter said that although Musk has met with EU Commissioner Breton at least twice this year to discuss what X needs to do to comply with the EU's Digital Services Act, he has lost patience with the situation.