{"id":264448,"date":"2026-06-04T15:49:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T19:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/04\/elon-musk-tries-again-to-escape-ftc-audits-of-x-data-handling\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T18:55:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T22:55:22","slug":"elon-musk-tries-again-to-escape-ftc-audits-of-x-data-handling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/04\/elon-musk-tries-again-to-escape-ftc-audits-of-x-data-handling\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk tries again to escape FTC audits of X data handling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elon Musk tries again to escape FTC audits of X data handling<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2026\/06\/elon-musk-tries-again-to-escape-ftc-audits-of-x-data-handling\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-04 15:49:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: arstechnica.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Musk lost his previous lawsuit after the court found it had no authority to amend or end the FTC\u2019s order. Musk is trying again with new arguments, complaining in a May petition to the FTC that they should set aside the order \u201cwithout delay.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Musk, the FTC should stop its monitoring because Twitter no longer exists, as X was merged into xAI, and then xAI was folded into SpaceX. Musk also argues that since none of the leadership or engineers responsible for the two-factor authentication error remain at the company, and \u201cX has since built a world-class privacy and data-protection program\u201d that protects consumers, the FTC doesn\u2019t have to intervene anymore.<\/p>\n

The company further argued that it has paid $17 million in \u201cneedless costs,\u201d since a lawsuit over the same two-factor authentication issue ended with a verdict in Twitter\u2019s favor. If a court found that Twitter\u2019s privacy policy adequately informed users that their contact info might be used for ad targeting, then the FTC should not be able to continue punishing X for that behavior, Musk argued.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe factual foundation of the FTC\u2019s complaint has been dismantled,\u201d X says. \u201cAnd the Order\u2019s staggering costs\u2014imposed on both the Company and on the Commission itself are unjustifiable.\u201d<\/p>\n

As X sees it, the order also requires the company to duplicate compliance efforts, because X already must take extra precautions with data to comply with laws such as the European Union\u2019s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).<\/p>\n

Finally, X raised two other claims to justify tossing the order. First, X claimed that allowing the FTC to maintain the order would chill speech on X, because it supposedly \u201ccreates a permanent mechanism through which future regulators can pressure the Company over the viewpoints it hosts.\u201d<\/p>\n

And second, X argued that Donald Trump\u2019s AI Action Plan requires government agencies to drop orders such as this one. Since X is \u201cat the center of…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elon Musk tries again to escape FTC audits of X data handling https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2026\/06\/elon-musk-tries-again-to-escape-ftc-audits-of-x-data-handling\/ Publish Date:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":264449,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2256975350-1152x648-1780599648.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[103],"class_list":["post-264448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy","tag-general-data-protection-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264448"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264450,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264448\/revisions\/264450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}