E.U. Prepares Major Penalties Against X

> Unlike Google, Meta, Apple and Amazon, which are publicly traded, X is owned solely by Mr. Musk. EU regulators are considering using a piece of the law that lets them calculate a fine based on revenue that also includes other companies Mr. Musk privately controls, like his rocket maker, SpaceX. That increases the potential penalty to well over $1 billion, one person said.

Is the NYT wrong here or is the EU? It's private but it's not "solely owned" by a longshot. Either way, this is some pretty amazing Calvinball even by EC standards.

While others certainly have a financial interest in it, it is not publicly traded and Musk solely controls it. For instance, he just unilaterally sold it to another of his privately held companies, xAI, for a valuation he made up.

Musk's privately held companies, and to a large degree Tesla as well, are all things he treats as effectively one big company that he controls; he'll take employees from one to another at will, he sells them to each other or spins them out at will in all stock transactions, etc.

The EU regulations allow seeing through such sham company boundaries that are all controlled by a single entity, and treating them as a single company.