Brussels ordered X to preserve all Grok data. The order itself is more interesting than the headline.

On January 8, 2026, the European Commission issued a formal order to X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) requiring the preservation of all internal data related to the Grok large language model. The order was issued under Article 60 of the Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065), which empowers the Commission, as the supervisor of Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs), to require record-keeping for the purposes of an investigation under the Regulation. The factual predicate cited in the order — the public availability of Grok's "Spicy Mode," which has produced non-consensual sexualized imagery — is real and has been documented in three separate civil-society reports. What the order itself does, in legal terms, is the part most coverage has missed.

I will not call regulation "red tape." It is not. It is the procedural infrastructure within which markets operate, and treating it as friction is the surest way to be surprised by an enforcement letter.

What Article 60 actually does

Article 60 of the DSA permits the Commission to require a VLOP to retain "all relevant information" pertaining to a potential infringement, for a defined period, on penalty of periodic fines under Article 76. The provision was modeled on the analogous record-keeping powers in EU competition law (Article 18 of Regulation 1/2003) and is procedurally a precursor to a formal proceeding rather than the proceeding itself. It is, in other words, the first step. The next step — which has not yet been taken in this matter — is a Statement of Objections under Article 73, which would frame the substantive infringement findings.

The Commission's decision to begin with Article 60 rather than to open a formal proceeding under Article 73 is meaningful. It signals that the AI Office and DG CNECT (in coordination, the relevant procedural team) want a complete factual record before they commit to a substantive theory of infringement. That is the procedurally responsible posture; it is also the posture that produces decisions which survive appellate review at the Court of Justice.

The bigger procedural pattern

This is the third Article 60 order issued by the Commission since the DSA's VLOP enforcement powers came online in 2024 (the prior two were issued to TikTok in March 2025 and to Meta in October 2025). All three preceded substantive findings; none has yet been litigated through to a Court of Justice judgment. Whether the Court of Justice will sustain the Commission's scope on these orders is the question the next twelve months will answer.

The next procedural step on the calendar: the Commission's response to X's preliminary submissions, due in mid-May.