Musk defied court orders, refusing to take down the content. On August 19, X announced that it would be closing its offices in Brazil, meaning it would no longer have a representative in the country. With no one designated to correspond with the government and bear legal responsibility for the company’s decisions, Moraes issued a shutdown order on the platform in Brazil. He also took aim at Musk’s other company, Starlink, saying it was part of the same “economic group” and targeting the company with $2 million in fines after Musk initially said Starlink would not block X.
Musk eventually relented and Starlink complied with the court order. Meanwhile, X briefly avoided a blockade in Brazil by routing traffic through Cloudflare — which the company said was “unintentional” — though that route was also quickly shut down. Last week, the company said it had named a legal representative in the country and was filing the paperwork to be brought back online. After X paid a reported $5 million in fines imposed by the courts, it was allowed to resume operations. The moment is critical; Brazil has several important local elections taking place in October.
“I think this is a victory for the court,” said Ivar Hartman, associate professor of law at the Insper Institute for Education and Research in Sao Paulo. “It is now easier for the High Court to block Starlink accounts in the future if X misbehaves again.”
But Hartman says as long as the company follows the law, continues to have legal representation and complies with court orders, he doesn’t see any further problems. At least not for Musk. “The odds of [the legal representative] at some point having an arrest warrant against them is not zero. It’s possible,” he says. “And so I hope they get paid a lot of money.”
Santos says he suspects that even if X violates court orders again, Starlink will at least be somewhat isolated, noting that the company provides internet to many rural Brazilians. “It’s much easier to live without X than Starlink in Brazil,” says Santos.
