Elon Musk has been ordered to pay a $1.8 million fine to lift the ban on X in Brazil. A Brazilian judge, involved in a legal dispute with the platform’s owner, made the announcement on Friday.
Brazilian supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered X to be shut down in Brazil last month after Musk refused to remove dozens of right-wing accounts and then failed to name a new legal representative in the country as required by the court.
As a part of his effort to tackle disinformation in Brazil, Judge Moraes has been engaged in a long-standing dispute with Elon Musk.
Meanwhile, Musk has repeatedly criticised Moraes in social media posts, calling him an ‘evil dictator’ and comparing him to ‘Voldemort,’ the villain from the ‘Harry Potter’ series.
Moraes said that to lift the ban X must pay a fine of 10 million reais ($1.84 million), after rejecting a request to reactivate the platform.
He also said on Friday that the platform would be penalised for not complying for two days with an order to suspend the use of a server, which had temporarily allowed it to circumvent the nationwide ban.
The feud between the Brazilian court and the billionaire has turned into a high-stakes battle, testing the boundaries of both freedom of expression and corporate responsibility in South America’s largest country.
Before the ban came into effect on August 31, X had over 22 million users in Brazil.
The company has started to comply with the Brazilian court’s order to get reactivated since last week, such as appointing a legal representative in the country.