E.U. lumping SpaceX in with X?

[Cmaier]

EU considers calculating X fines by including revenue from Musk’s other firms

Musk could face DSA fines of up to 6% of global revenue—including SpaceX sales.

arstechnica.com

Look, I dislike Musk and X as much as the next guy, but the E.U. has lost its mind. It’s rapidly getting to the point where nobody is going to do business in the E.U. The risk of having vague rules interpreted such that you lose a percentage of *global* revenue, not just for the company being punished, but for related and unrelated companies (SpaceX is not related to X in any sense that has mattered up until this - and the Brazil thing).

 

[dada_dave]

EU considers calculating X fines by including revenue from Musk’s other firms

Musk could face DSA fines of up to 6% of global revenue—including SpaceX sales.

arstechnica.com

Look, I dislike Musk and X as much as the next guy, but the E.U. has lost its mind. It’s rapidly getting to the point where nobody is going to do business in the E.U. The risk of having vague rules interpreted such that you lose a percentage of *global* revenue, not just for the company being punished, but for related and unrelated companies (SpaceX is not related to X in any sense that has mattered up until this - and the Brazil thing).

Hmmmm … the potential reasoning is that Musk as the sole private owner is a single economic entity, which is why Tesla revenue would be exempt as Tesla is a publicly traded company. This is apparently the same rationale for why Brazil did the same thing. And of course I say “potential reasoning” since apparently the EU hasn’t made a final decision and this is a leak of what they’re considering. Personally, I think the idea has merit enough to be considered even if they don’t end up following Brazil’s example or if they do and a court shoots it down. In fact the removal of Tesla would be somewhat ironic since it was Tesla’s shares that went substantially went to financing Musk’s purchase of Twitter and its subsequent loss of value. Basically Musk has certainly connected his companies’ revenues together financially.

 

[Cmaier]

Hmmmm … the potential reasoning is that Musk as the sole private owner is a single economic entity, which is why Tesla revenue would be exempt as Tesla is a publicly traded company. This is apparently the same rationale for why Brazil did the same thing. And of course I say “potential reasoning” since apparently the EU hasn’t made a final decision and this is a leak of what they’re considering. Personally, I think the idea has merit enough to be considered even if they don’t end up following Brazil’s example or if they do and a court shoots it down.

from a legal perspective, this new trend is unheard of. It essentially annihilates the concept of corporate entities. But, whatever. The end result is that companies will start pulling out of Europe. You see it already, where apple is just refusing to launch features in europe because those features could result in it being fined like this based on laws that just state guiding principles and goals but don’t state actual rules about what can and cannot be done.

 

[dada_dave]

from a legal perspective, this new trend is unheard of. It essentially annihilates the concept of corporate entities. But, whatever. The end result is that companies will start pulling out of Europe. You see it already, where apple is just refusing to launch features in europe because those features could result in it being fined like this based on laws that just state guiding principles and goals but don’t state actual rules about what can and cannot be done.

While I don’t agree with everything the EU has done in the regulatory space, I don’t think that the EU is in too much danger here - it’s what? almost half a billion people with a combined GDP of approximately the US? Further Musk himself has financially linked his various companies together especially since the Twitter takeover, funnily enough most publicly through Tesla which is supposedly not being considered. Personally I wouldn’t mind seeing this idea tested, even if it fails in court. And again the EU themselves haven’t actually even said X will even pay fines yet never mind what revenue could be leveraged. It should also be noted that many countries in Europe, especially Germany and France, have a long history of viewing corporate governance and industry differently than the US with very different labor laws and regulatory frameworks than ourselves.

 

[KingOfPain]

Wasn't there a recent new message that fines couldn't be imposed, because Xitter's ad revenue was too bad?

Cliff is the lawyer here, but if Elon Musk (at least occasionally) handles his multiple companies as a single one by exchanging resources between them, why shouldn't the EU do the same?