Elon Musk to Meet EU Industry Chief Thierry Breton Today to Discuss Free Speech, Global Supply Chain Issues

EU industry chief Thierry Breton will meet Tesla boss Elon Musk in Texas on Monday to discuss global supply chain issues and the bloc’s newly agreed rules requiring tech giants to do more to police online content, Breton’s spokesperson said.

The meeting comes weeks after the world’s richest man clinched a deal to buy social media company Twitter for $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,40,400 crore) in cash.

The two will meet at 1900 GMT (12:30am IST on Tuesday) in Austin, where the new headquarters for Musk’s electric carmaker Tesla is located.

“Tech and supply chains will be high on the agenda at Tesla with Elon Musk,” Terence Zakka, spokesperson for Breton, said in an email.

“Free speech will also be on the menu between Thierry Breton and Elon Musk. So will EU regulation. Expect exchange on the Digital Services Act and how ‘new’ Twitter will play by European rules,” he said.

Musk secured the deal to buy Twitter last month with a pledge to revitalise the company and expand the number of users by cracking down on spam bots and reducing the amount of moderation to facilitate more “free speech”.

The billionaire’s comments prompted a rejoinder from Breton that Twitter must comply with new EU rules known as the Digital Services Act tackling illegal online content.

In his latest announcement regarding Twitter, Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder said he would significantly increase work ethic standards in Twitter once he officially acquires the social media platform.

“Work ethic expectations would be extreme, but much less than I demand of myself,” Musk said on Twitter on Friday.

The company will be “super focused on hardcore software engineering, design, information security and server hardware,” he added.

Musk previously said that he would like to revolutionize Twitter’s role in public debate as “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”