Elon Musk, CEO of X, made vitriolic remarks against the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, after he announced an inquiry into alleged infringements by Instagram, TikTok, and Grok.
“We will have zero tolerance on this matter, and we will defend our digital sovereignty against foreign coercion,” Sánchez declared in Dubai, UAE.
He spoke at the ongoing World Governments Summit 2026 — centered on AI, economic growth, and governance — under the theme Shaping Future Governments.
Sánchez said starting next week, Spain will change its laws to hold platform executives legally accountable for the violations taking place on their sites.
“This means that CEOs of these tech platforms will face criminal liability for failing to remove illegal or hateful content,” the prime minister told the gathering.
Sánchez charged governments across the world to stop turning a blind eye to the toxic content shared under the watch of social media executives.
Advising stakeholders to stop pretending that technology is neutral, he indicated Spain’s plan to make algorithm manipulation and amplification of illegal content a criminal offense.
“Disinformation is created, promoted, and spread by certain actors,” Sánchez said. “We will go after them as well as after the platforms whose algorithms amplify disinformation for profit.”
He further announced a plan to ban social media access for under-16s. Australia enforced the law in December 2025, becoming the world’s first. Greece, France, and the UK are planning similar legislation.
Sánchez decried how children are exposed to “a space they were never meant to navigate alone,” vowing that Spain will protect them from “the digital wild west” of abuse, addiction, manipulation, and violence.
The European nation is also set to implement “a hate and polarization footprint,” a system to track, quantify, and expose how digital platforms fuel division and amplify hate.
Reacting to Sánchez’s speech, Musk, in separate posts on X, called the PM “dirty,” “a tyrant and traitor to the people of Spain,” and “the true fascist totalitarian.”
X and its Grok artificial intelligence system are being investigated in France and the United Kingdom over a series of offenses. French authorities have summoned Musk for an interview.
