BRUSSELS, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Elon Musk’s X will not be designated as a gatekeeper under landmark EU tech rules known as the Digital Markets Act which would have subjected it to an onerous list of obligations, people with direct knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.

The European Commission, which opened an investigation into online social media platform X in May, will announce its decision next week, the people said.

The EU competition enforcer declined to comment. X, formerly known as Twitter, had previously told the Commission that even though it met the criterion regarding the number of users to be classified as a gatekeeper, it does not qualify for the other criterion as an important gateway between businesses and consumers.

Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok owner ByteDance and Booking.com, have been designated as gatekeepers, among others.