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Elon Musk’s satellite internet provider won’t comply with a court order to block access to his social media company X in Brazil unless its bank accounts there are unfrozen.
Brazil’s telecom regulator, Anatel, confirmed Starlink’s position after Anatel President Carlos Baigorri told Globo TV it had passed a note from Starlink to Brazil’s Supreme Court, Reuters reported Monday.
Starlink, a unit of Musk’s SpaceX rocket company, has 200,000 customers in Brazil, Reuters said.
Brazil was among X’s biggest markets before Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week ordered it shut down in Brazil because it no longer had a legal representative there.
A spokesperson for the Supreme Court didn’t respond to a request for comment.
A five-member panel of justices, including de Moraes, upheld his decision on Monday.
De Moraes’ order followed months of feuding with Musk over an investigation into disinformation and hate speech allegedly spread on X by so-called digital militias.
It also led to the freezing of Starlink’s accounts over unpaid fines de Moraes imposed on X for refusing to turn over documents, Reuters said.
Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” has called de Moraes an “utter disgrace to justice” and a “dictator.”
