The move further escalates the monthslong feud between Musk and Justice Alexandre de Moraes over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.
A Supreme Court justice in Brazil has ordered the suspension of social media platform X after its chief Elon Musk refused to name a legal representative in the country.
The move further escalates the monthslong feud between Musk and Justice Alexandre de Moraes over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.
De Moraes had warned Musk on Wednesday night that X could be blocked in Brazil if he failed to comply with his order to name a representative and established a 24-hour deadline.
The company hasn’t had a representative in Brazil since earlier this month.
“Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country,” de Moraes wrote in his decision.
The justice said the platform will stay suspended until it complies with his orders and also set a daily fine of 50,000 reais (€8,045) for people or companies using VPNs to access it.
In a later ruling, he backtracked on his initial decision to establish a five-day deadline for internet service providers and not just the telecommunications regulator to block access to X, as well as his directive for app stores to remove virtual private networks, or VPNs.
Brazil’s telecommunications regulator Anatel has 24 hours to comply.
The regulator’s chairman Carlos Baigorri told the GloboNews channel that the country’s biggest service providers will respond quickly, but added smaller ones might need more time to suspend X from their services.
The full bench of Brazil’s Supreme Court is expected to rule on the case, but no date for deliberations has been set.
In a post on X, Musk slammed de Moraes as an “evil dictator cosplaying as a judge.”
In a radio interview on Friday night, Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said everyone with investments in Brazil must abide by the law.
“He must respect the decision of the Brazilian Supreme Court. If he wants to, good. If not, be patient. Otherwise, this country will never be sovereign,” he said.
“This is not a country that has a society with a mongrel complex, that because he’s American and shouts at us, we get scared. This guy has to accept the rules of this country. And if this country has made a decision through the Supreme Court, he has to abide by it. If it applies to me, it applies to him.”
Brazil is an important market for X, which has struggled with a loss of advertisers since Musk purchased the former Twitter in 2022.
ADVERTISEMENTMarket research group Emarketer says some 40 million Brazilians, roughly one-fifth of the population, access X at least once per month.
X and its former incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in several countries, mostly authoritarian regimes such as Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and Turkmenistan.
Other countries, such as Pakistan and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended it before, usually to quell dissent and unrest.