Photo: Anna Moneymaker Getty Images via Agence France-Presse Starlink and X owner Elon Musk (center) at the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress on July 24 in Washington.
Agence France-Presse in Brasília
Published and updated on August 29
- Americas
The standoff between a Brazilian Supreme Court judge and Elon Musk is getting tougher: the accounts of his company Starlink have been blocked in Brazil, where his social network X is threatened with imminent suspension.
“We expect Judge Alexandre de Moraes to order the blocking of X in Brazil shortly, simply because we have not complied with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents,” the platform said in a statement.
This new episode began on Wednesday evening, when Judge Alexandre de Moraes threatened to suspend X if its owner Elon Musk did not appoint a legal representative for the company in the country within 24 hours.
In an injunction published on the social network, Judge Moraes of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) ordered Mr. Musk to indicate “within 24 hours the name and capacity of the new legal representative of X” in Brazil under penalty of “immediate suspension of the activities of the social network.”
In response, the billionaire posted a message saying that “this ‘judge’ has repeatedly violated the laws he swore to uphold.”
He also published a photo montage with a sarcastic message calling the magistrate “the son of Voldemort and a Sith knight,” an allusion to the villains of the Harry Potter and Star Wars sagas.
The judge opened an investigation into Elon Musk in April, accusing him of reactivating accounts whose suspension had been ordered by the Brazilian courts. Mr. Musk, for his part, accuses him of stifling freedom of expression.
The satellite company Starlink, which also belongs to it, also indicated on X on Thursday that Judge Moraes had “ordered the freezing of its financial assets” in Brazil, confirming press reports.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000According to this company, which operates in Brazil to provide Internet access, particularly in the Amazon, “this order is based on the unfounded premise that Starlink should be responsible [for the payment] of fines imposed – unconstitutionally – on X”.
The company said it wanted to deal with this matter “through legal channels”.
The hashtag “Twitter morreu” (“Twitter is dead”) was one of the most used in Brazil after the publication of the Court’s injunction supreme.
“Censorship”
On August 17, Elon Musk announced the closure of X’s offices in Brazil, while leaving the service available to Brazilian users.
He then accused Judge Moraes of threatening to arrest his legal representative in Brazil, which the social network considers to be a form of “censorship” aimed at blocking certain content.
“If we had accepted Alexandre de Moraes’ secret [illegal] censorship and requests to transfer private information, we would not have been able to explain our actions without feeling ashamed,” Musk said.
In the name of the fight against disinformation, the judge has ordered in recent years the blocking of the accounts of influential figures in Brazil’s ultra-conservative movements.
This is particularly true since supporters of the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), an admirer of Elon Musk, attempted to discredit the electronic voting system in the election won by his left-wing rival Lula in 2022.
In April, X admitted that users of several blocked accounts had managed to circumvent the restrictions.
The accounts in question belong to conservative figures such as Senator Marcos do Val, a former ally of Mr Bolsonaro, according to the federal police.
Elon Musk is also the subject of a judicial investigation in Brazil into the “digital militias” case, suspected of having used public money to orchestrate disinformation campaigns in favour of Mr Bolsonaro and his relatives.
A possible suspension of X would not be a first in Brazil: the encrypted messaging service Telegram was temporarily blocked twice, in 2022 and 2023, for refusing to comply with court orders.
According to the specialist website DataReportal, X has more than 22 million users in Brazil.
Among them, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. As if to prepare his “followers” for a suspension from X, he published the contact details of his official accounts on competing social networks late Thursday.