Elon Musk and his X Corp. await to see if Brazil’s top court will shut down the social media site in that country, even as his internet satellite company Starlink has its financials frozen, the latest developments in a fraught legal drama playing out between the billionaire and the Brazilian authorities.
Through its Global Government Affairs account, X said it expected to be shut down in the Latin America’s largest country “soon”, after Supreme Court Judge, Alexandre de Moraes imposed a deadline for the social media giant to appoint a legal representative under threat of “suspension of activities” there, a deadline which passed Thursday evening.
Brazilian law requires all internet companies to appoint a legal representative with whom they can communicate and deliver judicial orders, a position that remains unfilled after X’s representative resigned – a move preceded by threats and followed by the freezing of her bank accounts, according to X.
In its post, X decried de Moraes’s orders as “illegal,” saying that the judge’s ultimate objective was to “censor his political opponents”.
Soon, we expect Judge Alexandre de Moraes will order X to be shut down in Brazil – simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents. These enemies include a duly elected Senator and a 16-year-old girl, among others.
— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) August 29, 2024
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It said that in the coming days, it would “publish all of Judge de Moraes’ illegal demands and all related court filings” for the sake of “transparency”.
This comes after SpaceX owned satellite internet company Starlink revealed that de Moraes had issued an order earlier this week freezing its finances and preventing Starlink from conducting financial transactions in Brazil. Starlink said that the order came as a result of the ongoing battle between X and the Brazilian court, and that it was issued “in secret and without affording Starlink any of the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution of Brazil”.
Earlier this week we received an order from Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice @alexandre de Moraes that freezes Starlink’s finances and prevents Starlink from conducting financial transactions in that country
— Starlink (@Starlink) August 29, 2024
In response to this, Musk took to X to state that SpaceX and X are two different companies with different shareholders.
“I own about 40% of SpaceX, so this absolutely illegal action by the dictator @alexandre improperly punishes other shareholders and the people of Brazil,” Musk wrote.
Starlink said that it intends to address the matter legally, with Musk adding that in the meantime, SpaceX will provide internet services for free to its 250,000 Brazilian users “until this matter is resolved”.
These developments come as part of an ongoing feud between Musk and de Moraes centering on whether or not the social media platform will comply with Brazilian orders to block accounts accused of spreading lies and distorting the truth – orders Musk views as attempts at censorship.
AP News, citing the market research group Emarketer, reports that approximately 40 million people use Musk’s social media platform at least once a month, making the dispute one of high-stakes for the Brazilian population.
Meanwhile, Starlink has previously been used in the country to help in disaster response, with Musk himself awarded the the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit in 2022 by former president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Musk has made use of his social media site to launch attacks on the Brazilian judge, calling de Moraes on Thursday “an outright criminal” and a “tyrant”.
“Lula is his lapdog,” he continued, referring to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was elected President of Brazil in 2022.
He also posted Thursday an AI-generated image of the judge behind prison bars, captioned “One day, @Alexandre, this picture of you in prison will be real. Mark my words”.
One day, @Alexandre, this picture of you in prison will be real. Mark my words. pic.twitter.com/ZkHExAwQxm
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 29, 2024