Elon Musk and a judge of the Brazilian Supreme Court continued their standoff on Thursday after the billionaire’s Starlink company announced that its assets had been frozen in the nation due to a dispute over what would happen to his social networking platform X.
Judge Alexandre de Moraes of the Brazilian Supreme Court threatened to suspend X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday unless Musk designated a new attorney for the firm in Brazil within the next 24 hours. This marked the beginning of the incident.
Subsequently, Starlink, the satellite internet provider owned by Musk, announced on Thursday that it had obtained an injunction from Moraes that “freezes Starlink’s finances and prevents Starlink from conducting financial transactions” within the nation.
Starlink, which operates in Brazil, particularly in the Amazon, alleged that the order “is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied –unconstitutionally — against X.”
On X, the business declared its intention “to address the matter legally.”Along the way, Moraes, who also serves as the chairman of Brazil’s Superior Electoral Tribunal, has clashed with Musk in leading the country’s fight against misinformation.
He suspended several X accounts that belonged to followers of Jair Bolsonaro, the former far-right president of Brazil, who attempted to manipulate the election results in 2022 in order to win.
Moraes’s move on Wednesday intensified their months-long conflict.
Moraes demanded a probe into Musk back in April, claiming that he had reactivated some of the blocked accounts.
Musk and other critics accuse Moraes of stifling free speech.
In the order made public Wednesday, Moraes told Musk “to appoint the company’s new legal representative in Brazil within 24 hours.”
“In the event of non-compliance with the order, the decision provides for the suspension of the social network’s activities in Brazil,” it said.
Following the decree, socialist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva sent a statement on the site including the addresses of his other social media accounts, and the hashtag “O Twitter morreu” (meaning “Twitter is dead”) became viral in Brazil.
In reaction to the directive, Musk charged that Moraes had “repeatedly broken the laws he has sworn to uphold.”
In another ironic tweet, he altered a picture of Moraes and wrote, “Voldemort and a Sith Lord,” making reference to the evildoers from the Star Wars and Harry Potter films.
Earlier this month, Musk closed down X’s operations in Brazil, citing threats of imprisonment made by Moraes against the company’s former attorney to compel compliance with “censorship orders.”
Brazilian users have meanwhile continued to be able to access the social media site.
Musk is also the subject of a separate judicial investigation into an alleged scheme where public money was used to orchestrate disinformation campaigns in favor of Bolsonaro and those close to him.
