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Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes decided to lift blockages previously imposed on Starlink and X accounts after ordering the transfer of 18.35 million reais ($3.31 million) from the accounts to the country’s national coffers, according to a report by Reuters.
The lift was ordered because the amount transferred to Brazil’s coffers reached the total X owed the country in fines, which had been imposed amid a feud between billionaire Elon Musk and Moraes, according to a court statement on Friday.
Musk controls both X and Starlink.
As billionaire Elon Musk’s clash with a Brazilian Supreme Court justice came to a head last month, there were legal twists, insults, ultimatums, defiance and then, finally, capitulation. When the digital dust settled, X had become an ex.
Musk’s social media platform was banned nationwide and Justice Alexandre de Moraes set a whopping $9,000 daily fine for anyone using a virtual private network (VPN) to skirt the suspension. Brazil’s X users, left casting about for a new platform, mostly started washing up on Threads and Bluesky.
X had 22 million users in Brazil, according to estimates in the Digital 2024: Brazil report, just one-sixth the number on Instagram, and about one-fifth of Facebook or TikTok.
With inputs from agencies.