Lula says Musk must respect Brazil’s top court as X braces for shutdown

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Friday that billionaire Elon Musk must respect the rulings of the country’s Supreme Court, amid an ongoing feud that left social media giant X on the brink of being taken down in Brazil.

X was still working normally in Brazil on Friday morning, but the platform said on Thursday that it expected Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to order a shutdown “soon”, after a court-imposed deadline for the company to identify a legal representative in Brazil expired.

“Each and every citizen from any part of the world that has an investment in Brazil is subject to the Brazilian Constitution and Brazilian laws,” Lula told a local radio station.

“Just because a guy has a lot of money doesn’t mean he can disrespect (the law),” added the leftist leader, who on Thursday was labeled Moraes’ “lapdog” by Musk in an X post in which the billionaire also called the judge a “dictator”.

Under Brazilian laws governing the internet, social media platforms must have a representative based in the country.

To shut down X’s operations in Brazil, Justice Moraes would have to order telecommunication companies to stop carrying X traffic. Users, however, would still be able to dodge the blockage by using virtual private networks, or VPNs.

Amid the underlying feud over X, Brazil’s Supreme Court also blocked the local bank accounts of Musk’s Starlink satellite internet firm, which a source told Reuters was a response to the lack of legal representatives in Brazil for the social media platform.

Musk has said on X that Starlink – which offers internet connections to remote places – would continue to service Brazilians for free “until this matter is resolved”, claiming many remote schools and hospitals depend on the firm.

The billionaire also said in a separate X post that Starlink would “continue to support the Brazilian military even though our bank accounts in Brazil have been illegally frozen.”

The country’s military had said in a document sent to the lower house in June that an interruption of Starlink’s services would negatively affect its operations and could harm the strategic employment of specialized troops.