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.”
And there’s the real answer. I don’t think anyone is paying for their Starlink account with a wad of cash in a back alley. They will probably give people some number of days to close their accounts and sending notices to banks and credit cards to not accept payments for Starlink from Brazilian accounts or some other means of interfering with payments. Things will likely escalate from there with fines not dissimilar to those with Twitter and other methods to deter people from using the services illegally. There may well be some political elements, as well, but I’m not sure how important Brazil is to America to make that happen.