{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/markey-blumenthal-wyden-demand-ftc-reject-xs-frivolous-petition-to-evade-privacy-obligations", "Markey, Blumenthal, Wyden Demand FTC Reject X\u2019s Frivolous Petition to Evade Privacy Obligations", "2026-07-22", "2026", "2026-07", "Democrat", "Senate", "MA", "Edward J. Markey", "M000133", "www.markey.senate.gov", "markey", "https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases", "scraper", "Letter Text (PDF)\n\nWashington (July 22, 2026) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), member of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, along with Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) today wrote to Andrew Ferguson, Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), urging the agency to reject X\u2019s petition to terminate the company\u2019s privacy responsibilities under a 2022 FTC order. The FTC unanimously approved the 2022 order in response to Twitter\u2019s repeated privacy violations, which were well publicized before Elon Musk purchased the company and rebranded it as \u201cX.\u201d\n\nIn its petition, X makes the extraordinary claim that rebranding Twitter as X somehow frees the company from the privacy obligations it inherited. Beyond this claim, X\u2019s other arguments \u2014 that the order\u2019s compliance is too costly, that the company should be trusted to self-regulate, and that ending the obligations under this order would serve the public interest in the American AI race \u2014 are similarly frivolous. The senators therefore call for the Commission to reject X\u2019s self-serving attempt to evade its legal responsibilities.\n\nIn the letter, the lawmakers wrote, \u201cDespite X\u2019s arguments otherwise, the company is no stranger to the 2022 order; it is Twitter\u2019s successor. Although Twitter rebranded as X in 2023, X kept Twitter\u2019s assets, its users, and their data. Notably, the FTC order contemplated such a corporate rebranding. The 2022 order defines \u2018Respondent\u2019 to include Twitter\u2019s \u2018successors and assigns,\u2019 and its carve-out for genuinely distinct businesses applies only to entities that do not \u2018collect, maintain, use, disclose, access, or provide access to\u2019 data that previously enabled Twitter\u2019s services \u2014 a condition X plainly does not meet. A name change and new leadership do not undo that legal continuity. If they did, any company could escape an FTC order simply by merging with a new entity or changing its name. The Commission should require X to comply with the 2022 order it inherited.\u201d\n\nThe lawmakers continued, \u201cX\u2019s claim that compliance with the 2022 order is too costly rings hollow given the company\u2019s scale and the nature of the obligations it knowingly inherited. X puts the cost of compliance at roughly $17 million over the past four years \u2014 or around $4.25 million per year. When Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he valued the company at $44 billion, making those routine compliance costs a fraction of the value assigned to the company just a few years ago. Furthermore, Musk, the company\u2019s owner, is the richest person in the world, with sufficient personal wealth to support the company. More importantly, independent privacy and security oversight is not an optional expense to be cut when it becomes inconvenient. A company cannot earn early release from a privacy order simply by saying that compliance costs money.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-07-23T07:31:02Z", "2026-07-23T07:32:26Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/markey-blumenthal-wyden-demand-ftc-reject-xs-frivolous-petition-to-evade-privacy-obligations"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6621658578515053, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}