Australian court fines Musk’s X close to €400,000 for not disclosing data to online safety watchdog

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An Australian judge fined X Corp., the company Elon Musk set up which holds social media platform X, 650,000 Australian dollars (€398,500) on Thursday for failing to provide information to an online safety watchdog in 2023 about how it tackled child sexual exploitation content.

Federal Court Justice Michael Wheelahan also ordered the Texas-based social media giant to pay AU$100,000 €61,326) of e-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant’s court costs within 45 days.

The ruling ends a three-year legal battle in which X had argued it was not obliged to answer e-Safety’s questions.

X admitted it contravened Australia’s Online Safety Act by failing to provide a report that fully answered questions posed by e-Safety in a transparency notice issued on 22 February 2023, the agency’s lawyer Christopher Tran said.

X was legally obligated to provide the answers by 29 March that year. The US tech firm’s lawyer Perry Herzfeld told the judge e-Safety did not allege that the contravening conduct continued after 5 May, 2023.

“That was a period of change and transition for the company,” Herzfeld said, in a reference to Elon Musk taking over.

E-Safety had sent the notice to Twitter Inc., which merged with X in March 2023. Tran said both X and e-Safety agreed the fine was appropriate

“It’s appropriate because X Corp. is obviously a large company and a large figure is needed to ensure that a contravention is not treated as a cost of doing business,” Tran said.

In July last year, the full Federal Court ruled that X was required to respond to e-Safety’s transparency notice. That ruling upheld a judge’s decision in October 2024.

Inman Grant, a former Twitter employee, said meaningful transparency was critical to holding technology companies to account and creating a climate of increased protection in online spaces.

“In early 2023, we asked some of the world’s biggest technology companies, including Twitter, to report on steps they were taking to comply with the Australian Basic Online Safety Expectations in relation to the proliferation of child sexual exploitation and abuse materials on their platforms,” Grant said in a statement.

“This is not only a key part of our work as Australia’s online safety regulator, it also provides the Australian public with important information about how these companies are tackling the worst-of-the-worst content on their platforms,” she added.

X did not immediately comment on the court ruling but sources familiar with the matter indicated the company was willing to pay the fine and bring an end to the years-long dispute.