How Starlink Got Mixed Up in the Brazil-X Feud

SAO PAULO — Elon Musk’s satellite-based internet service provider Starlink backtracked Tuesday and said it will comply with a Brazilian Supreme Court justice’s order to block the billionaire’s social media platform, X.

Starlink said in a statement posted on X that it will heed Justice Alexandre de Moraes’ order despite him having frozen the company’s assets. Previously, it informally told the telecommunications regulator that it would not comply until de Moraes reversed course.

“Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil,” the company statement said. “We continue to pursue all legal avenues, as are others who agree that @alexandre’s recent order violate the Brazilian constitution.”

De Moraes froze Starlink’s accounts last week as a means to compel it to cover X’s fines that already exceeded $3 million, reasoning that the two companies are part of the same economic group. Starlink filed an appeal, its law firm Veirano told the Associated Press on Aug. 30, but has declined to comment further in the days since.

Read More: What to Know About Elon Musk’s Battle With a Brazilian Judge Over Speech on Social Media

Days later, the justice ordered the suspension of X for refusing to name a local legal representative, as required in order to receive notifications of court decisions and swiftly take any requisite action—particularly, in X’s case, the takedown of accounts. A Supreme Court panel unanimously upheld the block on Monday, undermining efforts by Musk and his supporters to cast the justice as an authoritarian renegade intent on censoring political speech in Brazil.

Had Starlink continued to disobey de Moraes by providing access, telecommunications regulator Anatel could eventually have seized equipment from Starlink’s 23 ground stations that ensure the quality of its internet service, Arthur Coimbra, an Anatel board member, said on a video call from his office in Brasilia.

Already some legal experts questioned de Moraes’ basis for freezing Starlink’s accounts, given that its parent company SpaceX has no integration with X. Musk noted on X that the two companies have different shareholder structures.

X has clashed with de Moraes over its reluctance to block users—mostly far-right activists accused of undermining Brazilian democracy and allies of former President Jair Bolsonaro—and has alleged that de Moraes wants an in-country legal representative so that Brazilian authorities can exert leverage over the company by having someone to arrest. And Musk has been relentlessly posting in recent days, lambasting de Moraes as a criminal.

“This evil tyrant is a disgrace to judges’ robes,” Musk wrote on X along with a photo of de Moraes some 17 hours before Starlink announced its decision to comply with the order.

He hasn’t posted about the company’s operations in Brazil since its announcement.

The reversal comes as a relief to those in Brazil who have come to depend on Starlink. The company has said it has more than 250,000 customers in the country, many of whom are in remote areas that wouldn’t have fast internet access otherwise.

Before Starlink, internet access in many of these areas came from slow, unstable fixed antennae. Its easy-to-install kits and high-quality connections have transformed communication in some communities, surpassing even major Amazonian cities in speed.

The Forest People Connection project, founded in 2022 with Musk-donated Starlink terminals, has so far brought them to 1,014 remote communities, including riverine and Indigenous peoples. The Yanomami are among them. Living in a far-flung corner of Brazil’s rainforest, they had faced a severe Health crisis, but now have access to Starlink-powered telemedicine consults and reliable communication for emergency transport of patients.

Improved connectivity has also facilitated illegal activities, such as gold mining.

While Brazil’s massive territory with vast rural and forested areas makes it a key growth market for Starlink, its presence isn’t yet as large as Musk has led some to believe. On Sunday, he shared someone else’s post that showed him meeting Bolsonaro in 2022 and noted that the duo claimed to have struck a partnership to bring Starlink to 19,000 schools. Musk touted the deal on X at the time.

It never happened. As of March 2023, SpaceX and the communications ministry hadn’t signed any contract, and only three terminals had been installed in Amazon schools for a 12-month trial period. The ministry’s press office didn’t immediately answer an AP request for updated information about these contracts on Tuesday. Brazil’s Education ministry told the AP that states are responsible for signing contracts with internet service providers.

Since January 2022, when Starlink began operations in Brazil, it has captured a 0.5 percent share of the internet market, trailing significantly behind leading providers, according to Anatel.

Although Starlink has retreated and says it will now block X, Musk’s bravado in recent days has boosted his hero status in the eyes of his fans, said Marietje Schaake, the international policy director at Stanford University Cyber Policy Center.

“The battle of the titans, between de Moraes and Musk, reminds us of how powerful, political and provocative tech leaders have become,” said Schaake, who is also author of the forthcoming book “The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley.”

“Brazil won’t be that last country to seek accountability or to put up guardrails.”

—Maisonnave reported from Curitiba. AP writers Barbara Ortutay and David Biller contributed from San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro.