Musk’s Starlink Backs Down, Vows to Block X in Brazil

(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk’s satellite internet provider Starlink reversed course and said it would comply with an order by Brazil’s top court to block access to X, the billionaire’s social network, in Latin America’s largest country.

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Starlink, which had its bank accounts frozen by judicial order, had informally told Anatel, the country’s telecommunications watchdog, that it wouldn’t comply with the requirement, according to the agency.

“Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing of our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil,” the company said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Musk is in a bitter standoff with Brazil after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered X be banned as part of his campaign against disinformation. The dispute expanded to Starlink after X failed to pay fines and the judge moved to block the internet provider’s accounts in a bid to force the billionaire to comply with previous orders.

According to the court, the list of assets frozen includes the bank accounts and financial assets of Starlink Brazil Holding Ltda and Starlink Brazil Servicos de Internet Ltda’s along with cars, real estate, boats and aircraft. Moraes also ordered the central bank to prevent the company from sending or receiving money from abroad.

Anatel has registered an increase in hacking attacks, “which caused momentary system and network instability,” it said in a statement on Tuesday. Brazil’s Supreme Court and the Federal Police have also reported cybernetic attacks.

(Updates with details on hacking attacks in the last paragraph)