Australian Court Fines Elon Musk's X Close to €400,000 for Refusing to Answer Questions on Child Exploitation Content

An Australian judge has fined X Corp., Elon Musk's company that owns the social media platform X, 650,000 Australian dollars (€398,500) 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. The initial violation notice was sent by Australian authorities to Twitter Inc. shortly before Musk acquired the company and renamed it to X. 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 company's lawyer, Perry Herzfeld, told the judge that e-Safety did not allege that the contravening conduct continued after 5 May 2023. "T_hat was a period of change and transition for the company,_" Herzfeld said, in a reference to 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.

So X fought for three years. It argued it was not obliged to answer. It pointed to a period of change and transition. Musk had just taken over. The name was changing from Twitter to X. The legal entity was merging. But the court was not impressed. The fine stands. The costs are added. The transparency notice was issued in February 2023. The answers were due in March. They never came. Now, three years later, X is paying. The company is willing to end the dispute, sources say. The e-Safety commissioner, a former Twitter employee, says transparency is critical. The judge has spoken. The law has been applied. X is not too big to fine. And child sexual exploitation content is not something regulators take lightly – even when a billionaire is busy rebranding. In Australia, as elsewhere, the rules apply to everyone. Musk learned that lesson the hard way. The fine is paid. The case is closed. The questions about how X tackles the worst content on its platform remain unanswered. That, perhaps, is the real cost of doing business.

Written by Christiane Hofreiter