Brazil Lifts X Ban Following Musk’s Compliance With Court Demands

Brazil’s Supreme Court has authorized the return of X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, after the company complied with demands from the country’s top court, as reported by Bloomberg. The platform had been suspended for months after Musk refused to follow Brazilian regulations.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes stated in an order issued Tuesday that the company had met all the requirements necessary for the immediate return of activities in Brazil, bringing an end to the suspension.

The months-long standoff between Musk and Moraes had escalated when the judge blocked X in late August after Musk defied local regulations by shutting down the platform’s Brazil office and refusing to remove certain user accounts.

The closure of the Brazil office was in response to orders to take down profiles that allegedly posed a threat to the country’s democracy. After Musk’s refusal, the court imposed the ban. In the following weeks, Moraes targeted Musk’s other businesses, including satellite-internet provider Starlink, with fines and legal threats.

In September, X briefly went back online after the platform switched to Cloudflare as its cloud service provider. According to Cloudflare’s CEO, X avoided the ban by “coincidence,” but that coincidence ended up costing Musk almost $2 million, as noted by TechCrunch.

In late September, Musk reversed his position, agreeing to comply with the court’s demands, as noted by Bloomberg. The platform appointed legal representation in Brazil and took down the contested accounts, which mostly belonged to supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who had questioned the results of his 2022 election loss.

Musk’s shift came after Brazil’s Supreme Court threatened daily fines of 5 million reais ($903,000) and levied significant penalties on X for temporarily bypassing the ban. Brazil withdrew 18.35 million reais from local bank accounts of X and Starlink to cover fines, as reported by Bloomberg.

Musk had previously accused Moraes of attempting to censor conservative voices, but the judge argued that the court’s actions were necessary to curb hate speech and misinformation that could undermine Brazil’s democratic institutions.