Elon Musk’s X Still Down in Brazil After Company Sends $5.2 Million Fine to Wrong Bank
Britta Pedersen/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
X, formerly known as Twitter, has yet to be restored in Brazil because the company sent its $5.24 million fine to the wrong financial institution.
Brazil’s Supreme Court made the revelation on Friday and will delay its decision on whether to restore X in the country. The beleaguered social media platform was shuttered in the country after Elon Musk – the company’s owner – refused to comply with a ruling by Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who ordered X to conform to Brazilian laws regarding content moderation and hate speech.
In response, Musk went ballistic on the judge.
“One day, @Alexandre, this picture of you in prison will be real. Mark my words,” Musk wrote, along with an AI image of the justice behind bars. Musk also called him an “evil dictator” and “Voldemort.”
Regulators shut down the site less than a week later.
Musk is singing a much different tune now and has agreed to comply. One small issue is that his company sent the hefty sum to the wrong bank. In a document viewed by Reuters, X informed the court it paid 28.6 million reals, or $5.24 million in fines. But the judges discovered the massive oopsie and are now postponing their decision on whether to restore X.
The shuttering of X in Brazil proved to be a boon for the upstart social platform Bluesky, which saw an influx of signups in the country. Bluesky reported two million new users in the country in the span of one week.
