The standoff between Brazil’s most powerful judge and Elon Musk over the blocking of user accounts on X, a network that the magistrate is threatening to close, has escalated several notches. It no longer affects only the social network, but also Starlink, which is successful in many isolated corners of this giant country with its satellite internet service. Starlink accounts have been blocked by order of Judge Alexandre de Moraes as part of the lawsuit that the two have been locked in for months. In addition, this Thursday at 8:07 p.m. local time, the 24-hour deadline that the magistrate gave the billionaire to have X appoint a legal representative in Brazil expired. Musk responded in a tweet: “This guy @alexandre is a criminal of the worst kind disguised as a judge.”
Minutes after the deadline given by the judge expired without X appointing a representative, Elon Musk, #RipTwitter, and 20h07 were trending on the Tuitosphere Brazilian. Also triumphant were Xandão, the nickname by which Judge Moraes is known, and Bluesky, the network to which some of the Twitter nostalgics have moved in the last few hours. But beyond the tweets, the trends and the laughter, the judge and the tycoon are engaged in a formidable battle over the limits of freedom of expression and how to combat the misinformation that floods the networks and has a growing political impact. Then there is the polarized background of Brazil, with Moraes as the quintessential defender of democracy against the coup attacks of Bolsonarism, with which Musk has openly aligned himself. And as the icing on the cake, an undeniable battle of egos.
Starlink has 215,000 customers in Brazil, three times more than a year ago. The company believes that the judge has not respected the process, and has criticised the fact that the decision to freeze its accounts was made in secret and without being able to present its arguments. It has announced that it will appeal to the courts. For the moment, it cannot make transactions in Brazil. Starlink wrote to its customers on Thursday to inform them that if necessary, it will “offer them the service for free”.
The blocking of Starlink accounts is a consequence of X’s refusal to comply with Judge Moraes’ order to suspend the accounts of six users in the Bolsonarist orbit, including a congressman and a teenager. For Musk, this decision is pure censorship. And that is why it was not complied with. Faced with this position, the judge launched a challenge: he threatened to arrest the company’s legal representative. The tycoon responded with another: he fired all his employees in Brazil and from one day to the next closed operations in the first Latin American economy. Without a professional to represent the interests of a firm, local authorities have no one to communicate their decisions to. A strategy that Telegram also used in Brazil some time ago.
The decision to freeze Strarlink’s accounts is, for the judge, a way of ensuring that X pays a daily fine of more than one million reais imposed for disobeying previous decisions.
A few months ago, Judge Moraes included the South African tycoon as a suspect in a case he has been carrying out for years against the digital militias of Bolsonaro, but he has not taken any other concrete measures regarding Musk.
Follow all the information from El PAÍS América on Facebook y Xor in our newsletter semanal.
