Brazil’s Supreme Court on Monday confirmed a decision by one of its judges to suspend Elon Musk’s X social network over alleged judicial violations.
Access to the network in the country has been blocked since Saturday morning, just hours after Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered the platform suspended.
Moraes’ ruling came after Musk failed to comply with an order to name a new legal representative for the company in Brazil – a requirement that X has rejected as “illegal”.
Moraes and Musk have been locked in a high-profile dispute for several months, as the judge has vowed to fight misinformation while Musk asserts the supremacy of free expression.
On Monday, five Supreme Court judges, including Moraes himself, voted to uphold his ruling in a virtual session.
“Elon Musk has demonstrated his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty, and in particular for the judiciary, and has established himself as a true supranational entity, immune from the laws of countries,” Moraes said in the new ruling.
His colleague Flavio Dino said that “freedom of expression is no excuse for repeated violations of the legal system.”
Musk, who also owns Tesla and SpaceX, expressed fury at last Friday’s order, branding Moraes as “an evil dictator acting as a judge” and accusing him of “trying to destroy democracy in Brazil”.
The standoff began when Moraes ordered the suspension of a number of X accounts belonging to supporters of Brazil’s former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro had sought to discredit the voting systems used during the country’s 2022 elections, which he lost.
Brazilian authorities are investigating whether Bolsonaro plotted a coup to prevent his successor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, from taking office in January 2023.
Online users blocked by Moraes include far-right former congressman Daniel Silveira, who was sentenced in 2022 to nine years in prison for leading a movement to overthrow the Supreme Court.
In April, Moraes ordered an investigation into Musk, accusing him of reactivating some of the banned accounts.
Musk is also the subject of a separate investigation into alleged use of public money to run a disinformation campaign in favour of Bolsonaro and people close to him.
The suspension of X came just a month before municipal elections in Brazil.
In August, X announced it was closing its offices in Brazil due to Moraes’ activities, but assured customers they would still be able to access his services.
X had nearly 22 million users in Brazil as of Friday, according to data reporting site .
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
