Elon Musk’s X on Saturday escalated its war of words with Brazil’s supreme court over alleged censorship and vowed to shut down its local operation “immediately”, in the billionaire’s latest intervention on the global stage.
In a post on X, the social media company alleged that on Friday Justice Alexandre de Moraes threatened its legal representative in the country with arrest for not complying with a “secret order” to take down certain accounts.
A letter attached to the post, which X said was the court order, instructs the individual to implement the measures within 24 hours or risk a fine and imprisonment.
The court said neither it nor the judge would comment on the matter.
“Despite our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court not being heard, the Brazilian public not being informed about these orders and our Brazilian staff having no responsibility or control over whether content is blocked on our platform, Moraes has chosen to threaten our staff in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process,” X’s global government affairs account wrote.
“As a result, to protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately.”
X remains accessible in Brazil, the company said. It was unclear how many staff it had in the region.
Musk posted on X: “No question that Moraes needs to leave. Having a ‘justice’ who repeatedly and egregiously violates the law is no justice at all.”
The high-profile intervention ratchets up the tension between the supreme court and Musk, a clash that has become emblematic of the billionaire entrepreneur’s recent weigh-ins on foreign politics through the platform he bought for $44bn.
In recent years, Musk, a self-declared free speech absolutist, has increasingly sided with rightwing politicians globally, throwing his support behind Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and championing Argentina’s populist leader Javier Milei.
This has intensified recently, with Musk attacking the UK government for its handling of anti-immigrant rioting, and trading barbs with Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, resulting in the platform being blocked in the country by the authoritarian socialist for 10 days.
While Musk’s commentary has won him fans among Brazil’s conservatives, some lawmakers and analysts fear his interventions could stoke unrest.
The Tesla and SpaceX chief first took aim at de Moraes earlier this year over the supreme court’s request to take down what are believed to be rightwing accounts, and called on the judge to “resign or be impeached”.
In response, de Moraes ordered an investigation into Musk — who threatened to disobey the court orders — for suspected obstruction of justice. Musk reignited the spat this week by repeating claims of censorship, after X’s government affairs account posted a document purportedly sent by de Moraes ordering the platform to block certain users.
De Moraes has spearheaded a judicial crackdown against online disinformation, but is a controversial figure who divides opinion in Latin America’s largest democracy.
Supporters say he helped secure democracy in the face of attacks on the reliability of the country’s electronic voting system by former president Jair Bolsonaro, ahead of his unsuccessful re-election campaign in 2022. However, followers of the hard-right populist allege the judge has curbed freedom of expression and unfairly targeted conservatives.
Brazil’s supreme court has faced discontent from the far-right movement and been accused of over-reach by critics. Its premises were among the government buildings ransacked in January 2023 by radical Bolsonaro backers who claimed, without evidence, that the election result was rigged in favour of winner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
“We are deeply saddened that we have been forced to make this decision. The responsibility lies solely with Alexandre de Moraes,” X said on Saturday. “His actions are incompatible with democratic government. The people of Brazil have a choice to make — democracy, or Alexandre de Moraes.”
Additional reporting by Beatriz Langella