Thierry Breton, the European Commission for the internal market, lost no time in rattling his sabre at Twitter as soon as it was announced that the company had accepted Elon Musk’s offer to buy it. Even though Musk had made no announcement on how he intends to run the company, beyond stating his belief in free speech, Breton felt it necessary to warn Twitter that if it ‘does not comply with our law, there are sanctions – 6 per cent of the revenue and, if they continue, banned from operating in Europe.’
There is a reason, of course, for the failure of Europe to produce a tech giant
Is Breton’s outburst really about online safety, or is it motivated by sheer envy – envy that the US has all the tech giants and that Europe does not have a single company to match the likes of Twitter and Facebook, let alone the far more impressive giants of Microsoft, Apple, Google? Truth is that the EU has been trying to make life difficult for US tech companies for years, with such devices as the General Data Protection Regulation.
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