Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has issued a stern public warning to Elon Musk over how X is being used to direct increasingly aggressive rhetoric toward Europe, arguing that the platform is drifting from an ideal of free speech toward orchestrated hostility.
Ethereum founder calls out Elon Musk
In a series of articles on
He acknowledged that the European Union has serious shortcomings, listing “the GDPR clicks are stupid, the chat monitoring is horrible, they need to be less bureaucratic and less business-friendly,” and criticizing what he called Europe’s selective moral stance, noting that its “kindness toward Ukraine often does not extend well to Gaza, Sudan or other places.” He also called “people who say mean things about criminals who get longer sentences than criminals” “just crazy.”
Despite this, the Ethereum founder argued that the way some X users talk about Europe goes well beyond legitimate criticism. He described “the apocalyptic attitude on these issues, conjuring up images of barbarians pillaging Rome, etc.” “, as “really over the top” and said it “sounds more like a coordinated attempt at delegitimization than constructive criticism.”
He rejected the idea that the real target was only Brussels-based institutions, writing: “I don’t believe the statement that ‘the target is not Europe, it’s the EU’: I have seen many cases where London was specifically targeted during the hate session, so no, it is largely an attack on Europe. According to him, this does not correspond to his experience “having spent an average of two months per year there over the last decade”.
The central confrontation took place in a direct response to Musk. Addressing the positioning of X’s owner as a defender of free speech, the Ethereum founder wrote: “I think you should consider that making
Buterin hints at Russian involvement
The thread sparked pushback from some users who argued that its wording downplayed European complicity in current conflicts. One critic responded that “failing to be kind is an incredible way to frame the financing, arming and political support of genocide”, and asserted that it is “hilarious to think that the US doesn’t suffer the same things, or worse, as what Americans say about the EU”.
The Ethereum founder responded that Europe is “a real mix,” pointing out that “different countries in Europe have very different policies” and emphasizing that the continent “also hosts the ICC, which is under a lot of pressure (see: judges are financially unstructured). »
Other responses broadened the perspective to geopolitics. Commenting on a suggestion that the current discourse resembles “a coordinated campaign because the Kremlin likes America’s new return to Monroe’s global security policy,” Buterin responded “yeah, basically” and added that “a lot of powerful people really like the view that the world should be just 5 to 20 adults who have their spheres and sometimes get together in a room to iron out differences, and everyone else can be excluded because they’re boring and inconvenient.” »
At the same time, Buterin reiterated his support for the European project as an institutional experiment. “I have a lot of respect for the idea of the EU, as an experiment to achieve the advantages of a superstate, without homogenization, without becoming an aggressive ‘great power’ and other disadvantages,” he wrote, while emphasizing that “the experiment needs to be adjusted in many ways; for example, we do not see enough unity in its foreign policy and too much unity in top-down bureaucracy and oversight at the same time.” If improved, he argued, “this model could serve as a very good example to the world.”
On the technical side, the Ethereum founder took advantage of the debate on “GDPR clicks” to propose a different approach to online control, calling for “more sophisticated user-side software (browsers, local LLMs…) that helps the user navigate the Internet and make intelligent decisions about what requires confirmations from the user”. Unlike the centralized dynamic that he criticizes on
Musk vs. The European Union
Musk’s anti-EU outburst comes notably after the Commission fined X €120 million for breaching its transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA). Musk wrote via ” and said it would be “appropriate to apply our response not only to the EU, but also to the individuals who took this action against me.”
In subsequent messages, he further intensified his efforts, declaring that “the EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries”, calling for “dissolving the EU and returning power to the people”, and even claiming that “EU commissioners are responsible for the murder of Europe”.
At press time, Ethereum was trading at $3,316.
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