• Musk calls for power to be returned to European nations.
• EU fines X 120m euros for breaking digital rules.
• European Commission said X breached transparency rules.

WASHINGTON: Elon Musk clapped back on Saturday at the European Union after it hit the tech tycoon’s X social media platform with a major fine, telling his 230 million online followers that the EU should be “abolished.”

Following a high-profile probe seen as a test of EU resolve to police Big Tech, the social media platform owned by the world’s richest person was slapped with a fine of 120 million euros ($140 million) on Friday for breaking the bloc’s digital rules.

The penalty was swiftly criticised by the US administration of Donald Trump, who as president aligned with Musk on a contentious effort to slash the federal workforce and cut spending, before the two had a falling out.

Musk himself weighed in after the fine was announced, posting on his X account: “The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people.”

When a user reposted Musk’s comment, he responded, “I mean it. Not kidding.”

“I love Europe, but not the bureaucratic monster that is the EU,” he added in another post.

The fine against X was the first imposed by the European Commission under its Digital Services Act (DSA) on content.

The Commission said X was guilty of breaching the DSA’s transparency obligation.

The violations include the deceptive design of the platform’s “blue checkmark” for supposedly verified accounts, and its failure to provide access to public data for researchers, it said.

X had also failed to be sufficiently transparent about its advertising, the Commission added.

ATHENS: Seventeen men were found dead on Saturday after a migrant vessel was discovered drifting off the Greek island of Crete, a coastguard spokeswoman told AFP.

“Two survivors in critical condition have been hospitalised,” the spokeswoman added.

“Autopsies have to be carried out as the circumstances of the sinking are not known.”

Greek state television channel ERT said the bodies had been found inside the vessel, which was taking on water and partly deflated.

Manolis Frangoulis, the mayor of the Cretan port of Ierapetra, told reporters that all the victims had been young.

“The vessel the migrants were on was deflated on two sides, which forced the passengers into a reduced space,” he added.

Coroners are looking at the possibility that the migrants died of dehydration, ERT reported.

The vessel was found 26 nautical miles (48 kilometres) southwest of Crete, said Greek officials.

A Turkish cargo ship spotted it and alerted the authorities, Greek news agency Ana reported.

Two coastguard vessels and another from the EU’s border agency Frontex travelled to the scene, as did a Frontex aircraft and a Super Puma helicopter, said the coastguard.

They added that the two survivors had said their vessel had become unstable because of bad weather, and they had had no way to cover up nor to eat or drink anything.

Migrants have over the last year turned their attention to the Greek island of Crete, in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, as a way of reaching European Union territory from Libya, in north Africa.

The UN’s refugee agency UNHCR says more than 16,770 people seeking asylum in the EU have arrived there since the start of the year.

A former UK doctor faces dozens of charges linked to alleged sexual offences against 38 patients who were in his care, including a child under 13, prosecutors have announced.

Nathaniel Spencer, 38, was charged with “a number of serious sexual offences allegedly carried out against patients while he was working as a doctor” in central England, regional prosecutor Ben Samples said on Friday.

They include “assault by penetration and sexual assault against a child”, he noted.

The charges against Spencer, of Birmingham, follow a police probe into the alleged sexual offences at two regional state-run hospitals in Stoke-on-Trent and Dudley between 2017 and 2021.

“Our prosecutors have worked at length to support a detailed and complex investigation by Staffordshire Police, carefully reviewing the available evidence,” Samples said.

They established “that there is sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial and that it is in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings,” he added.

Spencer, who was a resident doctor — previously known in Britain as a junior doctor — faces 15 counts of sexual assault, 17 assault by penetration charges and one count of attempted assault by penetration.

He is also accused of a further dozen offences involving a child under 13, which include sexual assault and assault by penetration.

Prosecutors and police have not disclosed how many alleged child victims were involved.

Spencer is due to appear at the North Staffordshire Justice Centre on January 20 for his first court hearing.