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Sao Paulo, Brazil:
Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Friday ordered the suspension of the platform following a months-long standoff with the tech billionaire over misinformation in South America's largest nation.
Moraes issued the ruling after Musk failed to comply with an order to appoint a new legal representative for the company.
Early Saturday morning, some users in the South American country were unable to access X, formerly known as Twitter. They were shown a message asking them to reload their browser without being able to log in successfully.
Musk, who also owns Tesla and SpaceX, reacted furiously to the judge's order, calling Moraes an “evil dictator masquerading as a judge” and accusing him of “trying to destroy democracy in Brazil.”
“Freedom of expression is the foundation of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” the billionaire, who has increasingly aligned himself with right-wing politics, wrote in X.
The two have been locked in an ongoing, high-profile feud for months as Moraes leads a battle against disinformation in Brazil.
Musk has previously declared himself a “free speech absolutist” but since taking over the platform formerly known as Twitter in 2022, he has been accused of turning it into a Agency for right-wing conspiracy theories.
He is an outspoken supporter of former US President Donald Trump's bid to reclaim the White House.
Moraes ordered the “immediate, complete and total suspension of the operation” of X in the country, ordering the national communications agency to take “all necessary measures” to implement the order within 24 hours.
He threatened anyone using “technological subterfuges” to circumvent the blockade, such as a VPN, with a fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900).
The judge also ordered Google, Apple and internet providers to “introduce technological obstacles capable of preventing the use of application X” and access to the website, although he later retracted that order.
The social media platform has more than 22 million users in Brazil.
Musk shut down X's business operations in Brazil earlier this month, alleging that Moraes had threatened the company's previous legal representative with arrest to force compliance with “censorship orders.”
On Wednesday, Moraes told Musk he had 24 hours to find a new representative or face suspension.
Shortly after the deadline passed, X said in a statement that he expected Moraes to shut it down “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”
'Who does Musk think he is?'
The confrontation with Musk began when Moraes ordered the suspension of several X accounts belonging to supporters of Brazil's far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, who tried to discredit the voting system in the 2022 elections, which he lost.
Brazilian authorities are investigating whether Bolsonaro planned a coup attempt to prevent current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking office in January 2023.
Among the internet users blocked by Moraes are figures such as far-right former congressman Daniel Silveira, who was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2022 on charges of leading a movement to overthrow the Supreme Court.
In April, Moraes ordered an investigation into Musk, accusing him of reactivating some of the banned accounts.
On Thursday, Musk's satellite internet operator Starlink said it had received an order from Moraes freezing its accounts and preventing it from conducting financial transactions in Brazil.
Starlink alleged that the order “is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be liable for fines unconstitutionally imposed against X.”
The company said in X that it intended to “address the matter legally.”
Musk is also the subject of a separate judicial investigation into an alleged scheme in which public money was used to orchestrate disinformation campaigns in favor of Bolsonaro and his associates.
“Any citizen from anywhere in the world who has investments in Brazil is subject to the Brazilian Constitution and laws,” Lula told a local radio station on Friday.
“Who does (Musk) think he is?”
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