The EU has issued a warning to Elon Musk over the alleged disinformation about the Hamas attack on Israel, including fake news and “repurposed old images”, on X, which was formerly known as Twitter.

The letter arrives less than two months after sweeping new laws regulating content on social media seen in the EU came into force under the Digital Services Act.

If Musk, the owner of X, does not comply he can face a fine of 6% of his revenues from X or a total blackout in the EU.

Thierry Breton, the commissioner responsible for the act, wrote to Musk to urge him to ensure “a prompt, accurate, and complete response” to the request to contact Europol, the EU police enforcement agency, and “relevant law enforcement agencies” within the next 24 hours.

Breton reminded Musk that he needed to have “proportionate and effective mitigation measures to tackle the risks to public security and civic discourse stemming from disinformation”.

“Following the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel, we have indications your platform is being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU,” wrote Breton.

“Public media and civil society organisations widely report instances of fake and manipulated images and facts circulating on your platform in the EU, such as repurposed old images of unrelated armed conflicts or military footage that actually originated from video games. This appears to be manifestly false or misleading information,” he said.

“Let me remind you that the Digital Servi