Elon Musk has found something in Brussels he likes. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who less than a year ago called for the European Union to be scrapped, publicly credited EU regulators for pushing Apple onto USB-C.“Have to give the EU regulators credit where it’s due for making all Apple products use USB-C,” Musk posted on X early Tuesday. The post crossed 3.4 million views within hours. When one user replied that it was the best thing the EU ever did, Musk answered with a “100” emoji. To another who wrote “Yes, but…”, he added a caveat of his own: “USB-C firmware is complex.”
Musk’s USB-C post comes months after X’s €120 million EU fine
A kind word from Musk towards Brussels is rare. In December 2025, the European Commission fined X €120 million under the Digital Services Act, pointing to its blue checkmark system, its advertising repository and limited data access for researchers. Musk responded that the EU “should be abolished” and called it a “bureaucratic monster”.
Apple fought the common charger rule before moving the iPhone to USB-C
The rule Musk is praising is one Apple resisted for years. The EU’s common charger directive, adopted in November 2022, made USB-C mandatory for phones, tablets, earbuds, cameras, handheld consoles and other small devices sold in the bloc from December 28, 2024. Laptops followed in 2026.Apple argued that forcing a single connector would hold back innovation. Greg Joswiak, its senior vice president of worldwide marketing, said in October 2022 that the company and the EU had been in “a little bit of a disagreement”. Speaking at a tech conference in California, he conceded Apple would “obviously” have to comply, while maintaining that a less prescriptive approach would have been better for customers and the environment.Apple made the switch with the iPhone 15 in September 2023, retiring the Lightning port it had used since 2012. By 2025, the rest of its accessories had moved over as well.The EU’s case rested on numbers. It estimated that one charger standard would save consumers around €250 million a year and cut about 11,000 tonnes of charger waste annually. India has since pushed its own USB-C requirement for phones.Musk’s praise, for now, stops at the charging port. His posts on Tuesday made no mention of the Digital Services Act or the fine on X.
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