By NyTimes - Jack Nicas/Ana Ionova - 21 Sept. 2024

Reporting from Rio de Janeiro

Elon Musk suddenly appears to be giving up. In an abrupt reversal, the social network’s lawyers said it was complying with court orders that it had previously defied. Brazil’s Supreme Court could allow the site to return next week.

After defying court orders in Brazil for three weeks, Mr. Musk’s social network, X, has capitulated. In a court filing on Friday night, the company’s lawyers said that X had complied with orders from Brazil’s Supreme Court in the hopes that the court would lift a block on its site.

The decision was a surprise move by Mr. Musk, who owns and controls X, after he said he had refused to obey what he called illegal orders to censor voices on his social network. Mr. Musk had dismissed local employees and refused to pay fines. The court responded by blocking X across Brazil last month.

Now, X’s lawyers said the company had done exactly what Mr. Musk vowed not to: take down accounts that a Brazilian justice ordered removed because the judge said they threatened Brazil’s democracy. X also complied with the justice’s other demands, including paying fines and naming a new formal representative in the country, the lawyers said.

Brazil’s Supreme Court confirmed X’s moves in a filing on Saturday, but said the company had not filed the proper paperwork. It gave X five days to send further documentation.

Musk in Brazil appeared to be a defeat for the outspoken businessman and his self-designed image as a warrior for free speech. Mr. Musk and his company had loudly and harshly criticized Brazil’s Supreme Court for months, even publicly releasing some of its sealed orders, but neither had publicly mentioned their reversal by Saturday morning.

The moment showed how, in the yearslong power struggle between tech giants and nation-states, governments have been able to keep the upper hand.

Mr. Musk has had to come to terms with that reality in other countries, including India and Turkey, where his social network complied with orders to censor certain posts. But in Brazil and Australia, he complained about government orders he disagreed with and accused local officials of censorship. His company’s responses to governments have often been in line with his personal politics.

Brazil is one of X’s most important international markets, with analysts estimating that it had more than 20 million users there. Since X has been blocked, Brazilians have flocked to the social network’s rivals: Bluesky and Threads, which is owned by Meta.

The longer X remain blocked, the more Mr. Musk risked losing market share and revenue — problematic for a company that has alienated many American advertisers by allowing users to say just about anything on the site.

Another Musk-controlled company, the satellite-internet service Starlink, was also caught in the crossfire. Brazil’s Supreme Court took $2 million from Starlink in Brazil to cover fines it had issued against X.

Many of the accounts X had been ordered to take down in Brazil belonged to prominent right-wing Brazilian commentators who had once intensely praised Mr. Musk for resisting the court’s orders. Some were now conflicted about his backpedaling.

Mr. Musk “has bowed down,” Paulo Figueiredo, a right-wing pundit who had his X account blocked in Brazil, wrote in a post on Thursday, when X first hired new lawyers in Brazil, signaling a shift in stance. “It’s a very sad day for freedom of expression.”

A day later, Mr. Figueiredo said he understood Mr. Musk’s stance “and appreciates his efforts.”

The turn of events was a major victory for Brazil’s Supreme Court and the powerful justice who has led the push to regulate online speech, Alexandre de Moraes.

Justice Moraes has become one of Brazil’s most polarizing figures since the nation’s Supreme Court granted him broad authority to order tech companies to take down content that he deems a threat to Brazil’s institutions.

Since 2019, he has ordered social networks to take down at least 300 accounts, according to a New York Times analysis of a portion of his court orders, which had been leaked or released publicly. For more than half of those accounts, Justice Moraes did not provide details in the orders for why they should be taken down. He has generally issued such orders under seal, but The Times analyzed orders published by X and U.S. congressional Republicans. There are likely many more orders that remain secret.

Justice Moraes has said that he takes down accounts that attack Brazil’s democratic institutions. When ordering X to be blocked last month, he said it was because Mr. Musk intended to “allow the massive spread of disinformation, hate speech and attacks on the democratic rule of law.”

Mr. Musk had made confronting Justice Moraes one of his pet issues this year, at times posting repeatedly about the judge, insulting him, calling for his jailing and vowing to defy his orders. The issue came to a head when X stopped complying with the judge’s orders and then closed the company’s offices in Brazil to avoid consequences.

The first signs of the reversal came on Thursday, when Justice Moraes said in a court filing that X had hired new lawyers in Brazil.

One of those lawyers, Sérgio Rosenthal, said in a text message on Thursday that X planned to comply with all of the judge’s orders to take down accounts. “The goal is to regularize the company’s situation in Brazil,” he said.

On Saturday morning, a different lawyer, André Zonaro Giacchetta, said the conditions to return to Brazil “have already been met, but it depends on the assessment of” Brazil’s Supreme Court.

As recently as Wednesday, X seemed to still be defying the court. The company appeared to use a technical maneuver to evade efforts by internet providers to block its site in Brazil, allowing it to go live for many users in the country.

The company said in a statement that its return in Brazil on Wednesday was “inadvertent.” Mr. Musk himself seemed to suggest that the return of his network was a supernatural phenomenon rather than an intentional move to sidestep the authorities.

“Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology,” he posted on X.

But Brazil’s telecommunications regulator, Anatel, said in a statement that it believed the change was “a deliberate intention to disregard the Federal Supreme Court’s order.”

​​Justice Moraes seemed to agree, issuing a fine of $1 million per day and blocking the social network again. X remained inaccessible across Brazil on Saturday.

Kate Conger contributed reporting from San Francisco, and Lis Moriconi from Rio de Janeiro. Flávia Milhorance and Paulo Motoryn contributed research.