Elon Musk and Brazil are beefing over X

Brazil has opened an investigation into Elon Musk over a potential obstruction of justice after the X owner said he reactivated accounts on the social media platform Brazil had ordered the platform to block.

The inquiry opened by Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Sunday follows a string of heated interactions between Musk and the Brazilian government. On Saturday, X’s global government affairs team announced that “court decisions” had forced the platform to block “certain popular accounts” in Brazil and would face daily fines (of up to $20,000, according to The Associated Press) if it failed to comply.

“We are prohibited from saying which court or judge issued the order, or on what grounds,” said the affairs team. “We believe that such orders are not in accordance with the Marco Civil da Internet or the Brazilian Federal Constitution, and we challenge the orders legally where possible.”

Barely an hour later, Musk said that he had lifted the restrictions in Brazil and has since instructed X users in Brazil to download a VPN in case the country blocks access to the platform. Musk also called for Justice de Moraes to “resign or be impeached” after claiming he was responsible for the order.

Heading Brazil’s top election court, Justice de Moraes has advocated for eliminating anti-democratic content posted online in the wake of far-right rioters attacking government buildings on January 8th last year. The Brazilian judiciary said that disinformation is “a singular threat to Latin America’s largest country,” having directed several crackdowns against hate speech, incitement, and fake news following the attack.

It’s unclear if the order for X, the site formerly known as Twitter, to ban certain profiles is linked to supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro or members of the far-right movement involved with the January 8th riots. The platform has, however, become a hotbed for misinformation and other harmful rhetoric since being purchased by Musk back in 2022, with the European Union recently criticizing X for failing to effectively moderate false news around the Israel-Hamas war.

The order and subsequent investigation into Musk comes as Brazil calls for “urgent” focus on social media regulation. “We cannot live in a society in which billionaires domiciled abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law, failing to comply with court orders and threatening our authorities,” Brazil’s attorney general, Jorge Messias, posted to X on Saturday, seemingly targeting Musk. “Social peace is non-negotiable.”

While positioning himself as an ardent defender of free speech, Musk has said multiple times he’ll follow the rule of law where required. In an interview with Don Lemon last month, Musk said that X has a “responsibility to adhere to the law” and would take down illegal content. Last April, Forbes reported that X has fully complied with over 80 percent of government censorship requests, compared to the roughly 50 percent that were accepted before Musk took ownership of the company.