Elon Musk on Brazil freezing Starlink bank accounts: ’Illegal action by a dictator'

Elon Musk condemned Brazil's Supreme Court for blocking Starlink's bank accounts and called Judge Moraes a 'tyrant'.

Elon Musk, owner of X and Tesla, slammed Brazil's top court judge for blocking the bank accounts of Starlink internet firm. In a series of posts on X, he called Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes “an evil dictator cosplaying as a judge” and an "outright criminal of the worst kind" who is a "tyrant".

Elon Musk attends the Breakthrough Prize awards in Los Angeles, California, US. (Reuters)

The tech boss also lashed out at Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and called him Moraes's "lapdog". This comes after a Brazil Supreme Court froze Starlink's finances and prevented it from conducting financial transactions in Brazil. The order was signed by Brazil's Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes.

The decision stems from a separate dispute over unpaid fines of at least 20 million reais ($3.6 million) that X was ordered to pay due to its failure to turn over some documents.

X to be banned in Brazil?

Brazil Supreme Court judge Moraes threatened to block X in the country if the company doesn’t appoint a legal representative in the country. The Supreme Court said that the time allowed for Elon Musk's social media platform to name its legal representative for Brazil would expire at 8:07pm on Thursday and the country's law requires all internet companies to have a legal representative in the country who can receive judicial orders and be legally responsible.

In a post, Elon Musk responded to the order with an apparently AI-generated picture of a man resembling Alexandre de Moraes behind bars, saying “One day, Alexandre, this picture of you in prison will be real. Mark my words."

In another post, Elon Musk said many remote schools and hospitals depend on SpaceX’s Starlink. He said, “SpaceX will provide Internet service to users in Brazil for free until this matter is resolved, as we cannot receive payment, but don’t want to cut anyone off.”

He also informed that he owns about 40 percent of SpaceX, saying, “So this absolutely illegal action by the dictator @alexandre improperly punishes other shareholders and the people of Brazil.”