The European Commission said on Friday it was stepping up its investigation into whether Elon Musk's social media network X breached EU rules on content moderation with requests for information and an order for it to retain relevant documents.

The EU on Friday demanded X provide more details about its algorithms as part of its wide-ranging probe into the platform, as Elon Musk's outbursts on European politics ramp up pressure for the bloc to act.

The pushback comes as the emboldened leaders of US tech companies, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, have been courting President-elect Donald Trump, with Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg urging him directly to combat EU regulatory enforcement.

Google has told the EU it will not comply with a forthcoming fact-checking law, according to a copy of a letter obtained by Axios. The company states that it will not be adding fact checks to search results or YouTube videos and will not use fact-checking data when ranking or removing content.

After Mark Zuckerberg's big announcement that Meta will no longer fact check, Google is also sending a message to the European Union: The search giant is opting out of a new EU law that requires fact checks.

TikTok, Shein, Xiaomi and three other Chinese companies were named in a privacy complaint filed on Thursday by Austrian advocacy group Noyb, which alleged the firms were unlawfully sending European Union user data to China.

Austrian privacy advocate NOYB has launched its first GDPR complaints against Chinese businesses. The organization has filed complaints against TikTok, Xiaomi, Shein, AliExpress, Temu and WeChat, alleging that these companies unlawfully shared information about European users with parties in China.

Austrian advocacy group Noyb has filed privacy complaints against TikTok and five other Chinese companies in the EU. Noyb claims that these tech firms are unlawfully transferring the data of users in the European Union to China.