Elon Musk's X closes Brazilian office over censorship dispute

Elon Musk isn't playing around when it comes to his freedom and that of his companies.

After a Brazilian judge threatened arrests over censorship orders, Elon Musk simply closed X's Brazilian office.

If the Brazilian government wants to overstep its bounds, then Musk is not going to bring revenue and tax dollars into the country.

According to FoxBusiness.com, "Social media giant X is closing its offices in Brazil due to legal threats from Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes." The outlet explained:

The company claimed Saturday that executives were 'forced to make this decision' after de Moraes threatened arrests if the platform did not take down content deemed problematic by the Brazilian government.

The X Global Government Affairs office announced its decision on the platform:

Last night, Alexandre de Moraes threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders. He did so in a secret order, which we share here to expose his actions.

The post continued, "Despite our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court not being heard, the Brazilian public not being informed about these orders and our Brazilian staff having no responsibility or control over whether content is blocked on our platform, Moraes has chosen to threaten our staff in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process. As a result, to protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately."

Elon Musk himself even commented on the situation publicly:

Due to demands by 'Justice' [de Moraes] in Brazil that would require us to break (in secret) Brazilian, Argentinian, American and international law, 𝕏 has no choice but to close our local operations in Brazil. He is an utter disgrace to justice. The decision to close the 𝕏 office in Brazil was difficult, but, if we had agreed to [de Moraes]’s (illegal) secret censorship and private information handover demands, there was no way we could explain our actions without being ashamed.

De Moraes had ordered X to disable certain accounts earlier this year, claiming that they were spreading misinformation.

X previously told Brazil's Supreme Court that it would comply with the censorship of certain accounts, but apparently changed course when "'operational faults' made it impossible to follow through on the orders."

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