After defying court orders in Brazil for three weeks, Elon Musk's X has complied with orders from Brazil's Supreme Court in the hopes that the court will lift a block on its site.
The decision was a surprise move by Elon Musk, who publicly and adamantly refused to obey what he called “illegal orders” to censor voices on his social network, and then dismissed local employees and refused to pay fines levied by Brazil.
The response from Brazil was to block X in the country and subsequently seize around $2M from a Starlink bank account and $1.3M from X to collect on fines.
Now X's lawyers confirmed that the company has done exactly what Musk vowed not to do — take down accounts that a Brazilian justice ordered to be removed for threatening Brazil's democracy and comply with the justice's other demands, which include paying fines and naming a new formal representative in the country. (Who the hell wants that job?)
Brazil's Supreme Court confirmed X's moves in a filing, but said that the company had not filed the proper paperwork yet, which it has five days to do.
Neither X nor Brazil provided a timeline for when X might resume operations in the country, or if it will. Although I'd imagine it will, because otherwise what was the point of caving to demands and taking down accounts on a social media platform that isn't going live again?
Meanwhile in the USA…. The SEC revealed that it is seeking monetary and legal sanctions to force Elon Musk to appear for a scheduled testimony, after Musk failed to appear last Thursday to provide a testimony about his $44B acquisition of Twitter in 2022. Musk's lawyer told the SEC that his client had to urgently travel to the East Coast for the launch of the Polaris Dawn mission and would be unable to attend the testimony or reschedule to the following day. The SEC intends to file sanctions against Musk, ordering him to “Show Cause [for] why he should not be held in civil contempt” for allegedly violating the original terms of the agreement stipulated in the May 2024 order, which established the Sep 19th date for the testimony.