The Brazilian Supreme Court, as part of its war against free speech, has reportedly punished another of Elon Musk’s companies for his refusal to censor more on X.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes has been in a power struggle with X that resulted in him effectively banning the platform in Brazil since the company refused to comply with overreaching censorship orders. De Moraes’s court has reportedly gone so far as to seizeabout $2 million from Musk’s Starlink company and over $1 million from X to punish him and his companies.
X Global Government Affairs stated that X refused to censor De Moraes’s political opponents, including an elected senator, despite the Justice’s demands, and so faces massive fines. One of those demands reportedly required that X have a “duly authorized legal representative,” Reclaim the Net reported. But X Global Government Affairs posted that it previously did have Brazillian legal representation until Judge de Moraes “threatened” her with “imprisonment” and later “froze all of her bank accounts” after she resigned. By seizing assets from Starlink De Moraes has now tied X’s suspension to Starlink’s ability to operate in Brazil.
Musk posted on September 4 in response to the Starlink assets freeze, “There is no legal basis for this whatsoever. Starlink is a different company with different shareholders. Moraes, the charlatan in judges robes, cannot even cite a law that Starlink has broken!”
Reclaim the Net reported on Sept. 14 that De Moraes’s seemingly retaliatory actions include a fine of 18.5 million reais ($3.2 million). And De Moraes reportedly approved Starlink’s local funds being impounded to “ensure the settlement of fines.”
Without specifying the amount of money impounded, Starlink confirmed the news in an August 29 X thread. “Earlier this week we received an order from Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice @alexandre de Moraes that freezes Starlink’s finances and prevents Starlink from conducting financial transactions in that country,” the post announced.
The Starlink thread continued, “This order is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied — unconstitutionally — against X.” Starlink said that the order “was issued in secret and without affording Starlink any of the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution of Brazil. We intend to address the matter legally.” With over a quarter of a million Brazilian customers, Starlink concluded by noting, “the Starlink team is doing everything possible to ensure their service is not interrupted.”
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