São Paulo, Brazil – The Brazilian Supreme Court issued a subpoena on Wednesday to billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, owner of X (formerly Twitter), demanding that he appoint a new legal representative for the platform in the country within 24 hours, under threat of X’s suspension throughout Brazil.
Last week, Musk closed X’s Brazil office after refusing to comply with multiple Supreme Court orders to suspend posts and profiles that spread fake news and hate speech. As a result, as of August 18, the Supreme Court has required Musk to appoint a new legal representative in Brazil to be contacted and subpoenaed.
Since Musk did not respond, this time the court set a 24-hour deadline to comply with the order and has already ruled that if Musk does not appoint a new legal representative for X by Thursday, the platform will be suspended in Brazil.
The call was made through the profile of the Supreme Court in X in response to a post by Musk, precisely because the social network no longer has a representative in Brazil to receive the document. The court also released a statement on its website confirming the summons and announcing that X’s lawyer had also been notified.
As with all orders to block profiles on X, the subpoena for Musk was signed by judge Alexandre de Moraes, who has been heavily criticized by the billionaire for months. Musk complains about Moraes’ decisions, which he believes violate free speech and amount to censorship.
Musk spent days attacking Moraes on his X profile and even declared that Brazil was living under a “dictatorship”. He has yet to comment on the judge’s latest ruling, so it’s still unclear whether Twitter will be taken offline or not.
