For months now, Elon Musk has been locked in a feud with one of Brazil’s Supreme Court justices.
Over the past week, things have come to a head, with Brazil formally banning access to X, formerly known as Twitter, and Starlink’s financial assets being frozen. Brazilian social media goers are turning to virtual private networks(VPNs) to continue posting memes on X, others are posting furiously over the decision, and Musk has launched a new account dedicated “shining a light on the abuses of Brazilian law” allegedly committed by Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
Here’s what you need to know
A feud is sparked
In April, de Moraes — who has been serving on the Supreme Court since 2017 — said he would investigate Musk for obstruction of justice after the billionaire said he would defy a court order blocking some accounts on X. The company had initially complied with the order, before Musk decided to reinstate those accounts.
“We are lifting all restrictions,” Musk wrote on April 8. “As a result, we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there.”
Musk also claimed that de Moraes had applied “massive fines” — reportedly worth $20,000 for each account reactivated — and threatened to arrest X’s employees. De Moraes at the time said he would also include Musk in an existing inquiry into disinformation campaigns.
Then, on Aug. 17, Musk and his company announced that X’s office in Brazil would be closed, adding that de Moraes had threatened to arrest its legal representative. In a screenshot posted by X, de Moraes said he would fine the social media platform $3,650 each day and arrest company representative Rachel Nova Conceicao if they failed to comply with his previous orders.
Soon after, de Moraes ordered that the assets of a “de facto economic group” under Musk’s control be frozen to guarantee X pay the fines issued by Brazil’s courts. That group was quickly identified by local media as Starlink, a subsidiary of Musk’s aerospace firm SpaceX, which sells satellite internet services in Brazil.
“This guy @Alexandre is an outright criminal of the worst kind, masquerading as a judge,” Musk wrote in a post on X after local media reported the order, tagging Moraes’ account on the platform.
De Moraes’s fight against disinformation
As online disinformation circulated around Brazil’s 2022 presidential election — which eventually saw Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeat far-right incumbent Jair Bolsanaro — de Moraes was given unilateral power to order tech companies to remove online posts and videos.
On election day, he prevented highway police from stopping buses full of voters, banned social media accounts of prominent figures who claimed the election had been stolen, and even briefly suspended the governor of Brazil’s federal district, according to Americas Quarterly. He also banned social media accounts for allegedly spreading Covid-19 misinformation, allegedly agitating for a coup, and revoked a blogger’s passport. After Bolsanaro supporters stormed Brazil’s Congress and Supreme Court, de Moraes ordered dozens of prominent accounts that sympathized or questioned the elction be blocked.
Although allies have praised Moraes for his pursuit of bad actors, critics contend that he has too much power and targets those who have clashing opinions. With his latest action against X, even some supporters have adjusted their opinions, according to The New York Times.
“I was someone who was very on his side,” Harvard University professor David Nemer told the Times. “But when we saw the X decision, we were like: ‘What the hell? This is too much.”
Twitter’s past censorship
Although Musk has taken a hard-line approach to de Moraes’s orders, he hasn’t always been so willing to fight back.
In April 2023, Rest of World reported that Musk had fully complied with 808 out of 971 government demands it received within the first six months that he owned the company. It had partially complied in 154 other cases and failed to report a specific response for at least nine cases in that timeframe; none were refused.
Most of those orders came from Turkey and Germany; the former has strict rules — described by the liberal Brookings Institute as “Orwellian” — allowing it to restrict online speech and has been repeatedly criticized over the years for censoring information. Germany’s requests came after it increased enforcement of a revised 2017 law that prohibited hate speech and extremism, according to Rest of World.
“Twitter doesn’t have a choice but to obey local governments. If we don’t obey local government laws, we will get shut down,” Musk said in June 2023, responding to claims from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey that India’s government had threatened to “shut Twitter down” if it failed to remove critical content during a farmers’ protest.
But, somewhere down the line, Musk changed his tune. He has been publicly critical of takedown requests from both Indian and Australian authorities, even labeling ex-Twitter employee and Australia’s eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant a “censorship commissar.”
Just days before Rest of World published its report, X said it would no longer publish its twice-a-year transparency report, which gave insight into how many requests each country’s government made and how many were complied with. A day after Rest of World’s report, X said it would no longer share its takedown notices with Lumen, the Harvard University-run database cited by the outlet.
X is formally banned — and what comes next
On Aug. 29, Brazil officially banned the X over its failure to comply with its local laws and Moraes’ requests. On Monday, Sept. 2, Brazil’s Supreme Court unanimously voted in favor of the ban, accusing Musk of ignoring its orders and acting as if his company was above the law.
“Economic power and the size of one’s bank account do not produce some strange immunity from jurisdiction,” Judge Flávio Dino said, noting that such behavior could turn X into an “outlaw.” Judge Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha said she supported the ban because of X’s “aggressive and bellicose infringement” of Brazil’s laws.
Over the past week, Musk has frequently — and furiously — posted about Brazil, labeling de Moraes an “evil tyrant” and a “disgrace to judges robes,” among other colorful remarks. Although X has not said if it will pursue a legal challenge, the company has pledged to publish all of de Moraes’ “illegal demands” and related court filings.
Those documents are coming through a new account labeled the “Alexandre Files,” a reference to the “Twitter Files,” an effort that gave Musk’s handpicked journalists access to internal records. So far, the main revelation has been that X went the bold route of revealing the seven social media accounts de Moraes had wanted banned — as well as their owners’ identities.
They include a sitting senator, Marcos Ribeiro Do Val, Josias Pereira Lima, a pastor, and an account operated by the wife and 16-year-old daughter of a blogger who supports former president Jair Bolsonaro. That blogger, Oswaldo Eustáquio, has been accused of inciting and organizing the Jan. 8 riot that invaded and vandalized Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace after Bolsonaro lost re-election. He has sought asylum in Spain as Brazil has an open warrant for his arrest.
As for Starlink, the company has said it will pursue legal action against Brazil’s Supreme Court. In the meantime, Musk said the firm will provide internet services for users in Brazil for free, since it can’t currently be paid.
Some of the roughly 21 million X users in Brazil have turned to VPNs to access the social media platform, despite the threat of a fine. VPN usage has shot up 1,600% since the website was blocked, according to VpnMentor.