Elon Musk suffers another blow in Brazil as Supreme Court seizes $3m from X and Starlink bank accounts

Moraes and Musk have been at logger-heads after Brazil’s highest court demanded that certain X accounts, mostly believed to be associated with far-right users, be shut down in the nation.

After not complying with the court’s demands and closing X’s office in Brazil, Moraes ordered the full and immediate suspension of X in the country until all related court orders on X were complied with.

The orders include the payment of fines amounting 18.5million reais (£2.51million) and the nomination of a legal representative in Brazil. Moraes ordered telecommunications regulator Anatel to implement the suspension order, and to confirm to the court within 24 hours that it has carried it out.

To “guarantee the payment of fines”, Moraes froze the local assets of Starlink, a satellite-based internet service provider.

“Earlier this week we received an order from Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice @alexandre de Moraes that freezes Starlink’s finances and prevents Starlink from conducting financial transactions in that country,” Starlink wrote on X.

“This order is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied—unconstitutionally—against X,” the company said.

“It was issued in secret and without affording Starlink any of the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution of Brazil. We intend to address the matter legally.”

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In a statement, the court said that Moraes ruled to transfer more than 7.2 million Brazilian reais (£990,535) from an X bank account and almost 11 million Brazilian reais (£1.69million) from a Starlink account.

“The blocking of the accounts occurred because the justice considered the joint liability between X Brasil Internet Ltda., Starlink Brazil Holding Ltda. and Starlink Brazil Internet Services Ltda. for payment of fines,” the court said Friday.

The court said the companies’ assets were no longer frozen in Brazil.

It added that the banks that hold accounts of the two companies were informed that they had abided with the decision.

Moraes reasoned that Starlink could be responsible for X’s fines because they were from the same “de facto economic group”.

“After the payment of the full amount that was owed, justice (de Moraes) considered there was no need to keep the bank accounts frozen and ordered the immediate unfreezing of bank accounts/financial assets,” the Brazilian Supreme Court said.

X is accessed by 40 million Brazilians at least once a month and is an important method of communication for politicians.

The country is about to enter the campaign phase for local municipal elections in October that will decide the mayors of 5,568 towns and cities.