Turkiye Competition Board fines Elon Musk over Twitter takeover

Turkiye’s Competition Board has announced its decision to fine American business magnate and Twitter CEO, Elon Musk, over his takeover of the prominent social media platform without prior permission.

According to an order released today by the Turkish Competition Board, the country’s antitrust regulator, Musk’s takeover of Twitter in October last year was in violation of the agency’s rules as the businessman and social media platform did not seek its permission as per Turkiye’s laws.

As a consequence, Musk must pay out 0.1 per cent of his newly acquired company’s gross income in 2022. As Twitter’s revenues and gross income amounted to approximately $5.22 billion last year, that would make the fine an estimated $5.22 million.

The Board assured, however, that it approves the acquisition, “as there is no significant reduction in effective competition as a result of the transaction”. It also gave Twitter 60 days to appeal the decision, being open to a legal challenge.

Ankara has, in recent years, been cracking down on unregulated or weak social media measures within the country, imposing an $18.6 million fine on Meta platforms – formerly Facebook – in October for also violating competition laws, and more recently fining TikTok $93,000 for weak data protection.

While the Turkish government has insisted it is only attempting to curb transgressive influences caused by unregulated activity on social media sites, and to combat disinformation campaigns, critics have accused it of trying to impose greater state control on those platforms in order to silence dissent.

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