X allowed to resume in Brazil after Musk complies with judge’s conditions

New Delhi

Brazil's Supreme Court ordered reinstating X after Elon Musk agreed to its conditions, including deleting some user accounts and appointing a local legal representative for the platform.

The company has met “all the requirements necessary for the immediate return of activities” in Brazil, as Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes wrote in an order issued on Tuesday. “I decree the end of the suspension.”

The settlement ended a months-long standoff between the billionaire owner and Moraes, which peaked with the judge suspending the social network formerly known as Twitter at the end of August after Musk defied Brazilian laws.

It is a big concession from the world's richest person, who had billed his fight with Moraes as a free speech battle against the South American country in its attempts to regulate content on the internet.

Musk shut down X’s office in Brazil to protest against orders to remove certain profiles that allegedly posed a danger to its democracy. The country's top court then briefly suspended the platform for failing to comply with local regulations calling for it to have a local representative, blocking the platform that had more than 22 million users in the country.

In the following weeks, Moraes fined another of Musk's companies, the satellite internet provider Starlink, and threatened to add more fines if they didn't comply with the directives from the court.

But in a move that shocked both enemies and fans, Musk retreated to their demands. For months, he publicly attacked Moraes; later, X hired lawyers to represent the company in Brazil.

The about-face followed threats of a 5 million reais ($903,000) per day penalty on X if it circumvented the suspension, which happened following a software update that briefly let it bypass the restrictions. To be accessible after the suspension order, the company paid 10.3 million reais. Earlier in September, Brazil withdrew 18.35 million reais from local bank accounts of X and Starlink to cover fines imposed by the Supreme Court.

The dispute between an avowed free speech champion and a powerful judge drew attention from internet users within and outside Brazil, leading many to wonder if Moraes had gone too far in his bid to police the internet.