By Ricardo Brito and Luana Maria Benedito
BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes on Thursday blocked the financial accounts of billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink, as an ongoing feud leaves social media platform X on the brink of being taken down in the country.
Starlink confirmed it received an order from the judge that prevents the company from conducting financial transactions in Brazil and said in a post on X that it would address the order legally.
Moraes’ decision to sanction Starlink, the satellite broadband unit of Musk’s SpaceX, is a response to the lack of legal representatives in Brazil for the X social network, a Supreme Court source told Reuters.
At issue in the dispute is whether Moraes can order the social media platform to block certain accounts accused of spreading lies and distortions, a request Musk has denounced as censorship.
Moraes on Wednesday night ordered Musk to name a legal representative for X, formerly known as Twitter, in Brazil within 24 hours or have the social media site face suspension in the country.
Musk complained on Thursday that Moraes “is an outright criminal of the worst kind, masquerading as a judge.”
Starlink said in its X post that Moraes had issued the order “in secret and without affording Starlink any of the due process of law guaranteed by the constitution of Brazil.”
Earlier this month, X announced it would close operations and fire its staff in Latin America’s largest economy due to what it called “censorship orders” from Moraes, while keeping its service available for Brazilian users.
At the time, X claimed Moraes secretly threatened one of the company’s legal representatives in Brazil with arrest if it did not comply with legal orders to take down some content from its platform.
In Wednesday’s ruling about X, Moraes said that under the country’s law regulating internet issues, companies that do not respect Brazilian legislation or the confidentiality of private information could have their activities temporarily suspended.
The Supreme Court posted a screen shot of Wednesday’s court decision on its X account, tagging Musk’s and X’s Global Government Affairs accounts.
Earlier this year, Moraes ordered X to block certain accounts implicated in investigations of so-called digital militias accused of spreading distortions and hate during the government of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro.
After Musk challenged that decision and said he would reactivate accounts on X that the judge had ordered blocked, Moraes opened an inquiry into the billionaire in early April.
X representatives eventually reversed course and told the Supreme Court that the social media giant would obey the legal rulings. In April, however, Moraes asked X to explain why it allegedly had not fully complied with his decisions.
In response, lawyers representing X in Brazil told the Supreme Court that “operational faults” had allowed users who were ordered blocked to stay active on the platform.
Topics such as “Twitter will end,” “Elon Musk” and “Alexandre de Moraes” were trending on X in Brazil on Thursday, with hundreds of thousands of posts including numerous “memes” making light of the situation.
Among more serious reactions, some X users criticized Moraes’ decisions, saying he was harming freedom of speech in Brazil. Other users, however, sided with Moraes, saying Musk should not be above Brazilian law.
X, formerly known as Twitter, is widely used in Brazil, and is an important means of communication for politicians in particular.
(Reporting by Ricardo Brito in Brasilia and Luana Maria Benedito in Sao Paulo; Editing by Christian Plumb and Matthew Lewis)
