Australia's internet safety watchdog eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant slapped a $388,000 fine on Musk’s company for failing to respond to questions she sent in February, criticising the company's "empty talk" on the issue.

X was given until the end of October to pay the fine, request an extension or ask for the fine to be withdrawn. The company had requested an extension which expired last Friday.

"Twitter/X has not paid the infringement notice within the allotted timeframe and eSafety is now considering further steps," a spokesperson for Inman Grant told AFP.

Inman Grant—herself a former Twitter employee—last month urged X to show it was taking "tangible action" to clean up the platform.

"Twitter/X has stated publicly that tackling child sexual exploitation is the number one priority for the company, but it can't just be empty talk," she said at the time.

Musk slashed more than 80 per cent of X's global workforce since his takeover, including many of the content moderators who are responsible for stamping out abusive content.

Proactive detection of child sexual exploitation on X fell from 90 per cent to 75 per cent in the three months after the takeover, Inman Grant said.