Brazil’s Supreme Court has blocked Starlink’s accounts and is threatening to ban Platform X from the country
This happened because Platform X did not have time to appoint a legal representative in Brazil. Now Elon Musk’s social network risks losing one of its key markets.
Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday froze Starlink’s bank accounts after X failed to appoint a legal representative in the country by a deadline. According to Reuters, the decision was made by judge Alejandro de Moraes.
The lack of a representative for X in Brazil led to the blocking of Starlink’s accounts. Both companies are part of Elon Musk’s business empire. The dispute also includes unpaid fines for refusing to provide certain documents that could reach more than 20 million reais ($3.6 million).
Brazilian law requires Internet companies to have an official representative to obtain court orders and be held accountable for their activities. The Supreme Court gave Musk 24 hours to appoint a representative of the social network X. Otherwise, the platform will be forced to cease its activities in the country.
The deadline for appointing a representative expired on Thursday at 20:07 (23:07 GMT). The NYT reports that if Musk doesn’t appoint a representative, X could lose one of its biggest markets outside the US.
Musk reacted to the decision by calling Judge Moraes “the worst criminal pretending to be a judge.” Starlink accused the judge of making the decision without due process. The conflict between Musk and Moraes has been ongoing for several months and escalated after a judge’s decision to block X accounts belonging to supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.
Formerly X announced to cease its operations in Brazil, although the service will remain available to users in the country. This comes amid legal wrangling with Brazil’s Supreme Court, where Moraes has demanded the accounts be blocked as part of an investigation into election disinformation.
At the beginning of 2024, Moraes started a criminal case investigation against Elon Musk after Musk announced his intention to restore access to blocked accounts. However, the company later agreed to comply with the court order and blocked these accounts.
