Elon Musk Rages as Brazil Freezes Starlink’s Assets

Feud State

Elon Musk is once again playing with political fire amid his ongoing feud with a Brazilian Supreme Court judge — and for once, the brash billionaire may be in the right.

Though the fight that could, as CNBC and other outlets report, lead to the suspension of X-formerly-Twitter in Brazil has escalated dramatically this past week, the roots of Musk's spat with federal judge Alexandre de Moraes go back many months.

The debacle began in April, when Moraes ordered specific accounts be suspended in the country's sweeping push against disinformation. Although X initially complied, Musk was none too pleased and ultimately said he was lifting the suspensions and alleged that Moraes had "applied massive fines, threatened to arrest our employees and cut off access to X in Brazil."

"As a result, we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there," the site owner wrote in an April tweet. "But principles matter more than profit."

In response, the judge opened an investigation into Musk himself, and after months of barb-trading in the interim, the site owner chose to shut down X's Brazil operations in mid-August after Moraes threatened to arrest the social network's lawyer if he continued to not comply with his orders.

Freeze Frame

Following that arrest threat, X recalled its original lawyer — a move that clearly angered Moraes, who gave the site a since-passed 24-hour deadline to name a new legal representative or face a ban in Brazil. As the ban loomed, the judge also ordered Starlink's assets in the country frozen to ensure X pays its fines, the Portuguese-language outlet G1 reported earlier in the week.

While much of this contentious legal battle clearly hinges on two outsized egos butting heads, it does very much seem that Moraes is overreaching — and not for the first time — in his apparent crusade against disinformation.

Now that the judge's deadline to name a new lawyer has passed, Brazil and the rest of the world will have to wait to see if he's going to follow through on his ban threat.

In the meantime, Musk is digging in deeper in his condemnation of "evil dictator" Moraes on X — which for all its righteousness is probably a foolish way to handle such a difficult adjudicator.

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