Elon Musk-controlled satellite internet provider Starlink has told Brazil’s telecom regulator Anatel it will not comply with a court order to block social media platform X in the country until its local accounts are unfrozen.
Anatel confirmed the information to Reuters on Monday after its head Carlos Baigorri told Globo TV it had received a note from Starlink, which has more than 200,000 customers in Brazil, and passed it onto Brazil’s top court.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week ordered all telecom providers in the country to shut down X, which is also owned by billionaire Musk, for lacking a legal representative in Brazil.
The move also led to the freezing of Starlink’s bank accounts in Brazil. Starlink is a unit of Musk-led rocket company SpaceX. The billionaire responded to the account block by calling Moraes a “dictator.”
He’s arguing that it’s illegal because they are separate entities.
If Starlink refuses to comply or hinders others to comply, they are in contempt to the Supreme Court orders.
As long as this order is within the law, it shouldn’t matter if Starlink and X are connected or not.
And even if they are in orbit “above” the law, the ruling is only about their operating in brazil not about the satellite itself. And their operations within the country of Brazil do have to comply with Brazilian law and courts.
The issue of freezing star link accounts predates this shut down and was the result of some issue with x.
I’ve got no love for musk, but if the government is going after starlink because they have issues with x, it’s hard for me to disagree with him when he calls this dictator like. And thus it’s hard for me to fault him for using it as leverage.
If it’s about paying fines then that’s standard procedure. You can’t limited liability yourself out of fines: If the subsidiary doesn’t pay they fall onto the owner, said owner is Musk, said Musk has assets in Brazil in the form of Starlink accounts, hence, you impound them. If he had parked his Yacht there they would’ve gone for that.
This reminds me of an old, really old case: Some nobleman owed a Hanseatic trader money over a grain shipment. Refused to pay. Had the gall to show up in Hamburg. Trader had him arrested, noble threw a fit, appealed to the Emperor. Emperor said: “Dude that’s Hamburg, they DGAF if you’re a noble short of forbidding you to take up residence in the city, pay up”. Ended up selling most of his land to get out of debt and therefore prison, and an important lesson about assumed privilege was learned.
You can limit liability by creating separate entities and this is absolutely the standard, at least in the US. You would have to be very ignorant, or have sought no outside counsel, if you have some kind of decently profitable business and haven’t done so. It’s the whole point of these legal structures, such as LLCs. I don’t know the particulars of the case, nor the particulars of Brazilian law, so I don’t really know if it the case here.
That being said, speaking from an only slightly informed US perspective, if they are suing Musk himself, then yes they can absolutely go after his assets, which would include ownership in Starlink and X. However, if they fined X, it wouldn’t even remotely be a stretch that they do not have the legal authority to lock down Starlink accounts, as they are two separate entities that are presumably linked only by common figurehead.
State fines against a company aren’t a civil matter. Brazil isn’t suing anyone, they’re enforcing compliance with law by means of fines and the laws governing that would be written shoddily indeed if you could avoid fines by incanting “limited liability” like some sovereign citizen. “I’m not breaking laws, I’m doing limited liability business”.
Nor did I say anyone was suing anyone. I was just drawing up an example of a case how they could go after both entities. In this case, it appears the fine was levied against X, and not Musk.
And no one is talking about “avoiding fines.” WTF are you even on about? We are talking about them seizing Starlink assets because of fines levied against X. Musk doesn’t even own a majority share of SpaceX (who owns starlink). You are confusing “the face of” with “the legal entity.”
You are. Who is going to pay the fine against X? If Starlink doesn’t like it they’re free to sue Musk for the money back. They can cancel a couple of his shares to cover it. I don’t care. Brazil doesn’t care. The fine has been issued, and it’s going to be paid.
Blatantly lying about what I’ve said just indicates to me that you have no interest in getting to the truth, so I won’t bother any further.
The order to block Twitter went to all Brazilian ISPs, and Starlink is the only one that didn’t comply on Saturday.
So the escalation stems from the disregard of an order that everyone was required to obey, but the intertwined nature of both companies being controlled by Musk is both part of the reason why SpaceX would even consider not complying with local law in a country it operates in, and why the Brazilian courts seem to be willing to aggressively enforce their own orders.Edit: I’m convinced. This comment as originally written presented the facts out of order.
You’ve got it backwards. Right in the article, it notes “The decision to freeze Starlink’s accounts stems from a separate dispute over unpaid fines X was ordered to pay due to its failure to turn over some documents.” The escalation of Starlink not complying comes from that, not the other way around.
Again, seemingly backwards. It was the government of Brazil that used their “intertwined nature” to freeze Starlink accounts, and Musk has, in turned, used that “intertwine nature” as leverage.
To be clear, I hate defending Musk, but I don’t see why it makes sense to freeze Startlink accounts if it’s X that hasn’t paid the fines. Can they go after any company that he owns stock in? Can they start seizing Teslas? How about MS infrastructure, if he holds some ownership in that company too? I’m just not sure the government of Brazil is on the right side of this, and not simply using their power to punish Musk. If people said “I don’t really care and I’m glad they are holding his feet to the fire” that would be one thing, but people are arguing that it’s actually Musk who is doing all of this, while it appears that it’s actually the Brazilian government that “intertwined” them and Musk just responding in kind.
I’ve looked closer (at other articles, too). You’re right - the freezing of the SpaceX accounts came from the same order that ordered that Twitter be blocked, and before SpaceX announced it would refuse to comply.
The proper thing to do is to recognize the legally distinct personhood of SpaceX, which isn’t part of Twitter, even if Twitter/X itself is wrong on the law.
We need more people like you.
I wonder if he would have complied with the court order if the Brazil government hadn’t done this, if so then yeah, I guess that’s not shitty.
My gut says he would have started drama regardless.
It certainly wouldn’t be surprising.