Brazil's president: World shouldn't put up with Elon Musk's 'far-right' agenda just because he's rich
“The Brazilian justice system may have given an important signal that the world is not obliged to put up with [Elon] Musk’s extreme right-wing anything goes just because he is rich."
This was what Brazil president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told CNN Brasil days after the Musk-owned X was banned in the country.
Brazil's supreme court voted unanimously to suspend the social media platform on Aug. 30 after the country's month-long standoff over disinformation.
Musk reacted with fury and branded Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes as an "evil dictator cosplaying as a judge" and accused him of "trying to destroy democracy in Brazil."
Additionally, he reshared a post that said Brazilian senators supposedly "pledged" to impeach Moraes, and wrote "Great."
The Tesla and SpaceX owner, who calls himself a "free speech absolutist," has previously aligned himself with far-right former Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro.
With the ban, X loses about 20 million accounts in the major market.
The standoff with Musk began when Moraes ordered the suspension of X accounts belonging to Bolsonaro, who tried to discredit the voting system in 2022 elections when he lost.
In April, the Supreme Court judge accused Musk of reactivating the banned accounts.
Later, SpaceX subsidiary Starlink said it would not comply with the suspension of X.
On Aug. 30, when X was banned, Moraes ordered the "immediate, complete and comprehensive" suspension of its operations in the country and gave the national communications agency to take "all necessary measures" to implement the order within 24 hours.
He also threatened to slap those who attempted to get around the block, like using VPNs, with a 50,000 reais (P500,000) fine.
Musk continues to share posts on X against Moraes.
According to Forbes, the tech billionaire is the richest man in the world with a net worth of over $244.9 billion.
