STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Elon Musk, the world's richest man, is battling a Supreme Court justice in Brazil. Musk's social media platform, X, failed to comply with a Supreme Court order, and that leaves X vulnerable to being x-ed out in that country - suspended - at any moment, we're told. Reporter Julia Carneiro joins us from Rio de Janeiro to talk about this. Good morning.
JULIA CARNEIRO, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK, let's begin at where we are now. It's early in the morning, both here in the United States and in Brazil. Is X still running if you bring it up?
CARNEIRO: Yes. Yes, it is. I just tried again. The deadline given by Judge Alexandre de Moraes expired last night, but it's still up and running, and no one really knows what comes next. Everyone is posting, saying, this may be my last post. If Moraes really does order the suspension, this has to be executed by Brazil's telecommunications regulator, so this could take many hours. And let's remember, X has around 40 million users in Brazil. So this is huge, and everyone's watching to see what will happen. Many online are cheering this or booing this. They're saying the judge is attacking freedom of speech. Others are saying that he's helping to protect democracy from fake news.
INSKEEP: OK, I want to get at the essence of this case. As I understand it, the Supreme Court justice said to X, you have a legal obligation to name a legal representative in Brazil. I guess that means you need to have somebody here physically in Brazil that we can sue or reach out to or give an order to or whatever it is, and X has not done that. How's it come to this?
CARNEIRO: Yes, exactly. X removed its staff from Brazil a couple of weeks ago, claiming that Moraes was threatening to arrest its legal representative. But because of Brazil's internet laws, foreign companies are required to have a legal representative. Local elections, for instance, are coming up. If there's rumors or fake news, they need to have someone - the courts need to have someone they'll activate to say, hey, this has to be taken down immediately. It can't be sent to the United States.
So on Tuesday, Moraes issued an order saying X has to name someone else and gave the company 24 hours to do so or else it would be suspended. But X has failed to comply and has said on social media - on X - that it does expect Moraes to shut down the platform and that this was happening, quote, "because they did not comply with illegal orders to censor Moraes' political opponents."
INSKEEP: Now, one of the most interesting aspects of any story about Elon Musk is that he has so many different businesses. He has a piece of so many different businesses. He controls different things. If I'm not mistaken, X is not his only business in Brazil. So has this spread to his other companies?
CARNEIRO: It has, Steve. Starlink also operates here. It has a quarter of a million users here, providing internet - the satellite company - providing internet to Brazilians who live in remote locations in the Amazon, for instance. It's very big. And yesterday, Judge Moraes decided to freeze Starlink's assets here because X is not paying its fines. So he says while you don't pay your fines, we're going to keep your assets frozen. In a way, Justice Moraes has put himself in a tight spot because he'll be weakened in the public view if he fails to suspend X. But if the platform is blocked, it's a big liability for him...
INSKEEP: Oh.
CARNEIRO: ...Big responsibility.
INSKEEP: Because people do use it. Julia Carneiro is in Rio de Janeiro. Thanks so much.
CARNEIRO: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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