Saul Martinez
Billionaire investor Elon Musk lashed out at a Brazilian Supreme Court justice early Saturday as internet service providers in the country started blocking his social media platform X following a court order.
In his ruling on Friday, Justice Alexandre de Moraes gave the country’s telecoms regulator, Anatel, 24 hours to shut down X, blocking its access in the country of about 203M people, South America’s largest.
The Associated Press reported that major operators has begun to comply with the order after midnight local time on Saturday. De Moraes also gave Apple (AAPL) and Alphabet’s (GOOGL) (GOOG) five days to prevent downloads of X.
“𝕏 is the most used news source in Brazil. It is what the people want. Now, the tyrant de Voldemort is crushing the people’s right to free speech,” Musk, CEO of EV maker Tesla (TSLA) and space exploration company SpaceX (SPACE), wrote on X.
“The Brazilian people will learn of his crimes no matter how much he tries to stop it,” he added.
The ban follows a months-long clash between de Moraes and Musk over X’s operations in its fourth-largest market. The legal feud started in April when de Moraes, one of Brazil’s Supreme Court justices, ordered X to remove several accounts that it said were propagating hate speech and misinformation.
As X was reluctant to comply, the court threatened to ban X within 24 hours on Wednesday unless it appointed a legal representative for Brazil.
“Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country,” de Moraes wrote in his ruling.
Two weeks ago, X announced its decision to close down its Brazilian operations with immediate effect, citing “censorship orders” by de Moraes.