Elon Musk escalated his online attacks against a Brazilian judge, threatening to suspend the X platform in Brazil.
Musk’s conflict with Brazilian supreme court judge
Brazil’s highest court warned it would ban Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) if the company doesn’t appoint a legal representative in the country within the next few hours.
The head of the Supreme Federal Court, Alexandre de Moraes, stated that Musk and X’s failure to comply could lead to “suspension of the social network’s activities” in Brazil. “Alexandre de Moraes is an evil dictator posing as a judge,” Musk wrote on X, according to CNN.
De Moraes’ actions and X’s response
Musk, who has previously referred to de Moraes as “Darth Vader,” retweeted a statement from X’s global government affairs team. The statement promised to publish “the judge’s illegal demands and all relevant court filings” in the coming days.
Brazil is a key market for social media platforms. About 40 million Brazilians use X at least once a month, according to the Associated Press.
De Moraes has already blocked over 100 X accounts in recent years, including some belonging to supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Last April, he accused Musk of running a “disinformation campaign” and disrespecting Brazil’s sovereignty after Musk refused to comply with court orders to block certain accounts.
Earlier this month, X announced the closure of operations and staff layoffs in Brazil. He cited that there have been “censorship orders” from de Moraes.
De Moraes had ordered X to block several accounts that he said were spreading misinformation.
X’s decision to shut down operations in Brazil
On the Supreme Court’s official X account, the latest statement from de Moraes was made public. In this statement, Musk’s and X’s Global Government Affairs account were tagged. The statement, posted at 8:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday, gave Musk until Thursday night to respond.
On August 17th, X posted a lengthy message saying it would be forced to shut down operations in Brazil.
X stated:
“Despite our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court being ignored, the Brazilian public was not informed of these orders. Our staff in Brazil have no control over content blocking on our platform. Instead of respecting the law or due process, de Moraes chose to threaten our staff. As a result, to protect our staff, we decided to close our operations in Brazil immediately. X will remain available to Brazilian citizens. We deeply regret having to make this decision. Alexandre de Moraes is solely responsible.”
Later that day, Musk reiterated X’s official announcement, saying his company had “no choice” but to close operations in Brazil.
“Due to demands from ‘judge’ Alexandre de Moraes in Brazil that would require us to (secretly) violate Brazilian, Argentine, US, and international law, X has no choice but to close our local activities in Brazil,” he said in a post.
