Topline
Elon Musk said Saturday that X, formerly known as Twitter, will be closing the platform’s operations in Brazil after X claimed top Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes threatened to arrest a legal representative for the platform—an escalation in an ongoing dispute between Musk and Moraes.
Moraes has not publicly engaged with Musk on X despite the billionaire’s callouts. (Photo … [+]
Key Facts
Tension between Musk and Moraes first materialized in April, when X’s global government affairs page said it was forced to “block certain popular accounts” in Brazil without knowing the reason behind the block orders and what posts violated Brazilian law.
Moraes ordered X to block particular accounts as part of an investigation into “digital militias” accused of spreading disinformation and divisive messaging, The Guardian reported.
X’s government affairs page said it was barred from disclosing what court or judge issued the order, though Musk directly tagged Moraes in a follow up post and later said X was asked to suspend sitting members of Brazil’s parliament and major journalists, and had to pretend it suspended them over X’s own rules.
Musk later posted a string of tweets calling the legal orders “the most draconian demands of any country” on the planet, calling for Moraes’ resignation and claiming Moraes applied massive fines and threatened to cut off Brazilians’ access to X—which Musk said could result in the platform losing all revenue in the country and force it to shut down its Brazil office.
After Musk said he would reactivate accounts that Moraes ordered to be blocked, the judge issued a decision stating Musk would be included in an investigation of X, accusing him of obstruction of justice and incitement to crime, according to Time.
X’s government affairs page, which recently published multiple pages of blocking orders issued by Moraes, claimed Saturday it made multiple appeals to Brazil’s Supreme Court regarding the orders and was threatened by Moares with the arrest of one of its lawyers and a daily fine of 20,000 reais, or $3,653 U.S. dollars, if it did not comply.
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Chief Critic
Musk said Saturday Moraes “needs to leave,” likening the judge’s physical appearance to that of the “Harry Potter” villain Voldemort in a later post.
Contra
Some free speech activists have applauded Musk’s approach—but questioned his transparency. Nu Wexler, partner at the pr firm Four Corners Public Affairs (and a former Twitter employee in its communication policy team), accused Musk of “cherry picking,” and told the Financial Times that “[i]f a government wants something taken down, the calculus at [X] is now: is that country going to buy electric cars from us?” X has also stopped self-reporting its takedown notices from governments to Harvard University’s Lumen database. Before it did, though, a report by Rest of World (citing Lumen) reported that X had approved over 80% of government takedown requests, up 50% from before Musk’s ownership.
Forbes Valuation
We estimate Musk’s net worth at $244.8 billion, making him the wealthiest person in the world.
Who Is Alexandre De Moraes?
Moraes joined Brazil’s Supreme Court in 2017 and is the president of the country’s electoral tribunal. The judge has spearheaded investigations into former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro and probes into disinformation campaigns on social media, according to Time.
Key Background
Musk, who has characterized himself as a “free speech absolutist,” has clashed with international government figures before. A few weeks after his row with Moraes began, Musk accused Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of censorship after Australian regulators asked X to remove videos of a violent church stabbing that made global headlines in April. X removed the videos but took issue with the order’s far-reaching scale, as it asked for the posts to be removed from users’ feeds globally, as opposed to just Australia. Albanese later called Musk an “ arrogant billionaire who thinks he’s above the law, but also…common decency.”
Further Reading
Musk Says X Has Received Inquiry From Congress On Its Actions That Violated Brazilian Law (Forbes)
