Brazil’s Supreme Court said Friday that a judge has ordered the transfer of about $3 million from Elon Musk’s companies to pay fines for his social network X, which has been suspended in the country.
Judge Alexandre de Moraes last month ordered X to be shut down in Brazil after Musk refused to remove dozens of right-wing accounts and then failed to appoint a new legal representative in the country as ordered.
A brief court statement said Moraes “established the transfer to the state treasury of 18.35 million reais ($3.28 million), blocked in accounts” belonging to X and the satellite internet company Starlink, both owned by Musk.
Moraes repeatedly clashed with the South African-born billionaire after he made it his mission to tackle disinformation.
He also froze the assets of X and Starlink, which has been active in Brazil since 2022, particularly in remote communities in the Amazon, to ensure that fines X had received for failing to comply with court orders were paid.
The social media platform formerly known as Twitter has more than 22 million users in Brazil.
Moraes also ruled that those who used “technological tricks” such as virtual private networks (VPNs) to access the blocked site could face a fine of up to $9,000.
His measures have fueled debate over freedom of expression and the limits of social networks, both inside and outside the country.
Leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva welcomed the ban, while his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro called Moraes a “dictator.”
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