Tech titan Elon Musk has reportedly complied with demands made by the Brazilian Supreme Court surrounding the operation of the X platform in the country in the culmination of a weeks-long row that has sparked debate over freedom of expression and the role of governments and large social media companies in moderating online discourse.
“Elon Musk has backed down and complied with a Brazilian judge’s orders that he appoint a legal representative for X,” reported the Financial Times Saturday, citing court documents examined by the media outlet. X has also reportedly agreed to suspend several accounts cited by the court for generating disinformation and extremist content, according to other media outlets.
The move comes after Musk repeatedly refused to remove the accounts late last month in a highly visible spat with Brazilian Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes. Musk’s intransigence led to X being blocked in the Latin American country of 212 million.
The CEO has also faced fines for his failure to comply with the order and the freezing of bank accounts for X and Musk’s satellite internet company Starlink. Musk argued the measure was illegal under Brazilian law, but Moraes claimed X and Starlink’s parent company SpaceX were part of the same “economic unit,” with Musk enjoying 79% of SpaceX voting rights and 40% of the company’s stock.
The controversy led Musk to publicly trade barbs with the Brazilian Supreme Court Justice, who has sought to tamp down on far-right content and disinformation relating to Brazil’s 2022 presidential election.
"We will begin publishing the long list of [Moraes'] crimes, along with the specific Brazilian laws that he broke tomorrow,” Musk wrote on X. “We will begin publishing the long list of [Moraes'] crimes, along with the specific Brazilian laws that he broke tomorrow.”
“One day this picture of you in prison will be real. Mark my words,” Musk wrote to the Brazilian justice in a separate post, attaching a photoshopped image of Moraes in jail before replying with an image of toilet paper bearing the judge’s name.
X finally announced the company would appoint an official legal representative for the company Saturday, a requirement of doing business under Brazilian law.
Moraes’s order led to public debate over the proper role of governments in regulating social media, with Musk repeatedly referring to Brazil’s requests as tantamount to “censorship.” Musk has fashioned himself as a free speech champion amid Western governments’ increasing concern over online disinformation, which recently culminated in legislation set to effectively ban the platform TikTok in the United States.
But self-reported data from X, previously known as Twitter, reveals that Musk has actually complied with more court orders and government takedown requests than the website’s previous owners.
“The Brazilian justice system may have given an important signal that the world is not obliged to put up with Musk’s far-right anything-goes attitude just because he is rich,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva last month after the website was banned in the country.