Elon Musk backs down in his fight before Brazilian judges to restore X | Elon Musk

Elon Musk fought against the law. The law seems to have won.

X, Musk’s social media platform, has backed down in its battle with the Brazilian judiciary after the company complied with court orders that banned users in the country from accessing X.

The platform complied with one of the main demands of the Brazilian Supreme Court and appointed a legal representative in the country. It also paid outstanding fines and deleted user accounts that the court had ordered to be deleted on the grounds that they threatened the country’s democracy, the New York Times reported.

The fight is not quite over, however. The Supreme Court found that X did not submit the required documentation proving that it had appointed Rachel de Oliveira Conceicao as its Brazilian representative. It gave the company five days to submit documents confirming her appointment.

Musk has been at loggerheads with Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes since April after he ordered the company to shut down more than 100 social media accounts that questioned whether far-right President Jair Bolsonaro had really lost the 2022 election.

In mid-August, Musk closed X’s offices in Brazil, leaving the company without a legal representative in the country, a legal requirement for companies to operate there. Moraes responded by ordering Brazil’s mobile and internet providers to block access to X. Musk had used his platform to attack Moraes, calling him an “evil tyrant,” among other things.

Last week, X resurfaced in Brazil after a software update allegedly “inadvertently and temporarily restored service to Brazilian users”. However, Moraes said the update was “deliberate, illegal and obstinate” and imposed a 5 million reais (£680,000) fine on X, on top of the 18.3 million reais (£2.5 million) already imposed.

Musk has appealed court orders to remove some posts and accounts in Brazil and Australia, claiming he is a champion of free speech, although he has been less vocal in calling for content removals in countries such as Turkey and India. Brazil has a population of 200 million, making it an attractive market for social media companies.

Starlink, the satellite internet service provider run by Musk, has also had a falling out with Brazilian authorities. Moraes had frozen the company’s assets because it refused to enforce the block on X, but said on September 4 that it would comply.