If the European Union wants to participate in the AI economy, it needs to loosen regulations on big US tech companies, US Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder told CNBC on Friday.
“If the European Union is going to participate in the AI economy… it’s going to need access to data centers, data, and the AI hardware stack in the United States. We can’t over-regulate and move the regulatory goalposts and impose huge fines on companies,” Puzder told Ian King on CNBC’s “Early Edition of Europe.”
The European Commission has taken a number of steps over the past year to crack down on American tech companies. The moves have drawn repeated criticism from many officials in President Donald Trump’s administration.
“You know the very companies that can provide the data, the data centers, the AI hardware stack in the US,” he added. “If we regulate it outside the continent, we will not be able to participate in the AI economy.”
“So I think it’s important that Europe considers very carefully what it’s doing with respect to these companies. And I think it’s important that we consider the possibility of those companies continuing to have significant operations within the EU.”
The EU has defended its regulations on US tech companies, with Teresa Rivera, the EU’s competition chief, commenting in a 2025 statement that “all companies operating in the EU must abide by our laws and respect European values.”
EU vs. US big tech
meta After being fined 200 million euros ($230 million) in April, the EU was warned in February that it intended to impose measures against the tech giant to roll back WhatsApp’s AI policies. same month apple In September, it was fined 500 million euros. google A fine of 2.95 billion euros was imposed.
In December, Elon Musk’s social media app X was fined 120 million euros. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the fine “an attack by a foreign government against the entire American technology platform and the American people” in a post on X at the time.
On Thursday, the commission announced it had begun formal proceedings to investigate whether social media platform Snapchat owns the company. snapcomplies with the Digital Services Act (DSA) regarding the safety of children online.
