Elon Musk’s social media enterprise, known as X, has taken a formal step by submitting a petition to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), urging the agency to reconsider an existing data security oversight, which is set to last another 16 years. The company argues that this stringent oversight hinders its ability to innovate, particularly in the development of artificial intelligence technologies and products.

In this petition, X claims that a premature termination of the oversight would enable the company to focus more on creating and deploying AI without the added obligation of demonstrating consideration for data security and privacy risks during product development. The platform’s leadership contends that current regulations impose unnecessary financial burdens and operational limitations that detract from their innovation efforts.

Musk, a high-profile investor and entrepreneur, previously unified X under the umbrella of SpaceX, further intertwining the social media platform with his broader business ambitions. He acquired Twitter in October 2022 for approximately $44 billion—an amount mirroring societal reference points, as speculated—after which he initiated the rebranding of the platform to X.

The FTC is currently in the process of gathering public comments regarding X’s request to vacate or amend the May 2022 consent order. This order was established due to findings of misuses of user-provided phone numbers and email addresses for targeted advertising—an issue that brought prior accusations against Twitter.

X asserts that the consent order was imposed on a business model that no longer exists, as the former leadership responsible for the breaches is no longer with the company. It further argues that adherence to the order incurs millions in compliance costs and does not serve any current regulatory objectives, especially when taken into account the compliance measures already met under both domestic and international privacy laws.

The petition highlights a fundamental concern from X: the high costs associated with compliance. The claims made assert that “every hour that X’s engineers spend preparing for biennial assessments, responding to demand letters, or documenting privacy reviews for features that are already governed by other legal regimes is an hour not spent building AI tools that serve users and advance American competitiveness,” as stated in the petition. The AI division within X, known as xAI, finds itself in a competitive disadvantage when compared to other players like Anthropic and OpenAI. Recent organizational changes within xAI, including key departures of two co-founders and several technical staff, have raised eyebrows regarding the stability and future trajectory of the division.

It’s noteworthy that the 2022 FTC consent order extended an existing 20-year order from 2011, which required Twitter to bolster its cybersecurity following significant hacking incidents that compromised user security. According to estimates provided by X, compliance with the current consent order has already cost the company around $17 million, which includes the financial and operational implications of fulfilling agency requests and hiring outsiders to perform evaluations of its security practices.

The company’s legal surrounding also includes strong arguments related to the policy terms under which users’ personal information was initially provided, which allowed for certain forms of data repurposing. Citing a ruling from a California Superior Court that dismissed a class-action lawsuit against Twitter regarding the use of this data, the petition argued that the terms explicitly permitted the repurposing of email addresses and phone numbers supplied by users. The judge noted that the privacy policy did not promise that such data would not be utilized for marketing enhancements.

This recent petition represents Musk’s second attempt to extricate X from the constraints imposed by the 2022 consent order. A previous attempt in November 2023 was rejected by a federal judge, who declared that federal court was not the appropriate venue for such a challenge against an FTC order.

Given the current leadership of the FTC, under Chairman Andrew Ferguson—a Trump appointee advocating for regulatory reform—it remains uncertain how the agency will respond to X’s petition. The public has been granted a 30-day window to provide comments, potentially influencing the direction of the agency’s decision.