Elon Musk's social platform X (formerly Twitter) has recently filed a petition with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) seeking to overturn a privacy consent order reached in 2022. The order stemmed from FTC allegations that Twitter had asked users for phone numbers and email addresses under the guise of "security verification," then used that data for targeted advertising. Musk, who completed his acquisition in October 2022, first attempted to challenge the order in 2023 but did not succeed. In a new petition submitted this May, X claims that "all individuals responsible for the violations have left the company," and that it has built a world-class privacy and data protection system with a dedicated compliance team.
The request has drawn sharply divided reactions. Some consumer protection groups and Democratic lawmakers argue that X's aggressive expansion into artificial intelligence (AI) actually calls for stronger—not weaker—FTC oversight of its privacy practices. They contend that large tech companies have enormous potential to use data in AI, and the current consent order remains a critical enforcement tool. Meanwhile, a coalition of Republican state attorneys general has sided with Musk, accusing the FTC of "abusing its authority to demand information under the consent order," launching inquiries unrelated to consumer privacy, and alleging that the Biden administration is using the order to pressure tech firms.
