Elon Musk is a threat to Brazil’s democracy

For some time now, South African billionaire owner of X, Elon Musk, has been waging a war against a justice of Brazil’s Supreme Court, Alexandre de Moraes, supposedly to defend Brazilian people’s right to “free speech” on the popular social media platform.

So far, however, Musk’s ongoing feud with the judge has achieved nothing in the way of furthering the Brazilian people’s freedom of expression. Instead, it has highlighted the hypocrisy of Musk’s absolutist discourse on free speech and exposed the immediate threat that tech leaders like him who see themselves above the law and the will of nations pose to democracy.

The spat between the self-declared “free speech absolutist” and the Brazilian judge began in January 2023, after former President Jair Bolsonaro’s far right supporters, spurred on by false claims of electoral fraud spread on social media, stormed the National Congress and tried to violently overthrow the democratically elected Leftist president, Lula da Silva.

Moraes, who was in charge of several investigations targeting Bolsonaro as well as his close associates and supporters, swiftly issued orders for X to restrict or fully remove accounts that helped fuel this shocking attack on Brazilian democracy.

Moraes’ requests were lawful and in line with his responsibilities under the Brazilian constitution, but Musk framed them as attacks on free speech and democracy by an ideologically motivated judge empowered by Lula’s left-wing government. Despite adhering to similar requests from right-wing authoritarian governments, like that of India, without much protest in the past, Musk put himself on a collision course with the judiciary in Brazil, demonstrating his commitment not to free speech, but to protecting the interests of the global far right – a group he has become heavily tied to in the last few years.

On April 3, American journalist Michael Shellenberger published a cache of communications between various representatives of the judiciary and X Brazil employees. Labelled “Twitter files – Brazil”, the published communications revealed little other than the judiciary’s efforts to get harmful content and individuals removed from the platform. Even a data request by the Sao Paulo state judiciary relating to an organised crime investigation was included in the file, and was inexplicably framed by Musk’s supporters as an example of the judiciary’s attacks on freedom of expression – and democracy – in the country.

Months later, Musk himself, through X’s Global Government Affairs account, shared confidential communications from Justice Morais, in which he was requesting the suspension of selected accounts. Once again, however, Musk’s attempts to embarrass the Brazilian justice system have failed, as the document did not reveal no wrongdoing, under Brazilian law, by the judiciary.

Following the publications, Musk continued to publicly target Justice Moraes, branding him a “dictator” and even the “Brazilian Darth Vader” in public posts on X. “This judge has brazenly and repeatedly betrayed the constitution and people of Brazil. He should resign or be impeached,” Musk tweeted.  His provocations reached their peak on August 17, when he announced that he would close the X office in Brazil – resulting in mass layoffs – to “protect” its employees from Justice Moraes. He also refused to assign a legal counsel for X in Brazil, leaving the company in blatant violation of local laws.

In response, Justice Moraes ordered on August 31 the “immediate, complete and total suspension of X’s operations” in the country “until all court orders … are complied with, fines are duly paid, and a new legal representative for the company is appointed”.

Since then, some 40 million Brazilians who use the platform have been unable to access their accounts legally.

While Musk’s targeting of a judge for doing his job is unacceptable and the ban on X undoubtedly an inconvenience for the people of Brazil, the issue at hand is much more than a nation’s access to a particular social media platform, or a personal feud between a judge and a tech mogul. What we are dealing with here is the latest and perhaps most egregious example of a multinational company – in this particular instance controlled by someone openly flirting with the far right – trying to assert dominance over the democratically elected government and laws of a nation under the guise of defending freedom and democracy.

Musk’s public refusal to comply with Brazilian law, his demand that a Supreme Court Justice resign his position for issuing orders that he doesn’t approve of, and his suggestion that it should be him, rather than the justices of the highest court of the land, who should interpret Brazilian law and draw the limits of freedom of speech in the country demonstrate the danger billionaire “tech bros” controlling communication technologies can pose to democracy.

This is not to say Justice Moraes, or for that matter the Supreme Court in general, is above criticism. There is already a heated discussion in Brazil on the proportionality of the justice’s actions and whether some of his demands from social media platforms (especially for the removal of accounts that do not appear to be posing an immediate danger to anyone or currently committing an offence) amount to “prior censorship”. Public discussion on the high-profile actions of the judiciary is natural, healthy and very much necessary in a democracy.

There is, however, a big difference between criticism of the conduct of a Supreme Court justice, coming from within the nation he serves, and an extensive campaign by a foreign billionaire – executed in coordination with far-right activists and politicians – aimed at discrediting his investigations into a coup attempt and other attacks on Brazilian democracy. The former is an important component of democracy, the latter a blatant attempt to undermine it.

The coordination between Musk and the Brazilian far-right actors at the receiving end of Moraes’ investigations is no secret. On April 7, “Libertarian” congressman Gilson Marques filed a bill to imprison judges who suspend posts and account profiles on social networks for political opinions. Later that month, Bolsonaro supporters hailed Musk as their far right movement’s new hero at a demonstration in Rio de Janeiro attended by tens of thousands. Bolsonaro himself addressed the crowds and paid tribute to Musk, praising him as a man “who truly cares about the freedom of all of us”.

Bolsonaro supporters are trying to paint themselves as victims of leftist political persecution, and Musk as their potential saviour. The truth, of course, is that Bolsonaro’s base has no care or respect for democracy – as it made clear with its coup attempt last January – and is now encouraging a foreign billionaire to attack its country’s laws and institutions to save its leader and movement from finally facing accountability.

On Wednesday, Musk tried to circumvent the X ban in Brazil with an update to its communications network that allowed some users in the country to access the platform without a VPN, showing once again that he has no respect for Brazilian law. Only time will tell how the Supreme Court will respond to this latest escalation, and whether Musk’s X still has a future in Brazil as a mainstream platform. One thing we know, however, is that what we are witnessing in Brazil today is not just a feud between a libertarian billionaire and an overzealous progressive judge over the limits of free speech. It is a blatant attempt by a tech mogul with far-right ties to assert dominance over a sovereign democratic state’s independent judiciary. What we are witnessing is an attack on Brazilian democracy and should be treated as such.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.