I mentioned before that I don't agree with how Brazil is going about this situation if you believe Musk's telling of the events but it is also impossible to believe that Musk is some free speech warrior given how readily he complies with the demands of countries like Turkey and India so I'm still trying to understand what exactly is the straw that broke the camel's back for Musk. Was it that he just didn't like his representation being allegedly threatened with jail?
> I'm still trying to understand what exactly is the straw that broke the camel's back for Musk
Moraes finding Starlink and Twitter under common control, which they technically are, may have been it. The unspoken threat being sanctions on Tesla, Musk’s dominant source of liquidity and a levered position, both for sales and raw materials exports.
More than its direct effects, the contagion risks of that strategy could constrain Musk if e.g. the EU played hardball.
Musk has long enjoyed the benefits of treating his empire as a conglomerate, without the costs of things like shared liability, doing things like casually reusing Tesla engineers in Twitter or sending Twitter's GPUs to X.ai, and daring shareholders to do anything about it. Now that he's gone to war with the establishment, he may find that the blind eye turned to these sorts of things in the past is no longer going to be so blind; it's not like that sort of bait-and-switch or diffusion of responsibility is novel, and the legal system is well-equipped to attack it in more criminal settings.
And Moraes seems to be showing that it works: similar to how Musk is deathly silent about the CCP, even Brazil has enough muscle to bring him to heel, so you can bet the EU is watching with great interest indeed.
Picking a fight he couldn't win with Moraes, and showing everyone else the way to deal with him, may turn out to have been his biggest mistake since perhaps signing the iron-clad deal to buy Twitter itself.
AFAIK from friends who have worked for him, he has a habit of quickly firing people who disagree with him which can cause all sorts of problems. No-one left to tell you that something might in fact be a bad idea.
It was actually worse than that. It was Tesla’s GPUs and the board refused to even address it. I was actually a bit surprised that something hasn’t come of that yet.
X isn't a subsidiary of Starlink (or vice versa) so I genuinely don't understand the 'common control' argument you're making. Then again I'm not a corporate lawyer so what do I know.
It would be like Clayton Homes becoming legally liable for Fruit of the Loom because both are owned by by Berkshire Hathaway. It makes no sense.
> X isn't a subsidiary of Starlink (or vice versa) so I genuinely don't understand the 'common control' argument
“A ‘controlling financial interest’ is generally defined as ownership of a majority voting interest by one entity, directly or indirectly, of more than 50% of the outstanding voting shares of another entity” [1]. When a person has a controlling financial interest in multiple entities, those entities are under common control. The textbook example is “an individual or enterprise holds more than 50% of the voting ownership interest of each entity” [2].
Musk controls SpaceX [3], which in turn controls Starlink. Musk controls X. X and Starlink are under common control.
Whether that means Starlink is liable for X’s liabilities is a separate question. But it’s precedented in practically every jurisdiction for there to be a point at which entities under common control are jointly liable, at least to the degree to which they’re commonly controlled. (SpaceX’s non-controlling interests may have a separate claim on Musk.)
Side note: the comment I’m responding to doesn’t deserve to be downvoted.
Not a lawyer. But X blew off a court. That’s wilful contempt.
Under U.S. civil securities law, Warren Buffett ordering Clayton Homes to break the law could lead to control person liability [1]. If there were no way to hold Clayton Homes, Berkshire Hathaway or Warren Buffett personally liable, the next step would be enforcement against Fruit of the Loom.
Contempt of court is incredibly serious. Contempt pierces the corporate veil under U.S. law [2]. X acted in blatant contempt of Brazil’s courts. Musk publicly admitted to directing it to. There isn’t a competent jurisdiction, almost to the point of defining competence, in which this wouldn’t pierce the corporate veil.
Note that the judge (de Moraes), not the op, has made this argument, and it is certainly being treated as contentious. In the general case, the judge would need to show that he thought the corporate veil had been pierced here, but who knows what Brazilian law says, or what the Supreme Court will rule.
That's funny. This is an unelected supreme court judge-god-king who is being actively protested for unconstitutional censorship, and he laughs at the people protesting him.
It doesn't matter what brazilian law says. He does what he wants. You don't get to appeal because there's no court above him. Even if you somehow appeal anyway, he judges the appeals to his own judgements. I've seen news of him handling accusations against himself.
If I were the US I'd sanction Brazil for illegally stealing millions from US companies via completely arbitrary and illegal "fines". US Trade Representative already sanctions us over the copyright infringement situation, and this is much worse. There's basically no limit to how many dollars this guy can steal from the american economy if the US doesn't put a stop to him. It's not even the first time, and Twitter is not the only victim. Google tried to campaign against the "fake news" laws by committing the grave crime of putting up a link on their web page. He slapped them with an arbitrary hourly fine too until the link was gone. "Abuse of economic power and market position", they called it.
USA is already making some moves. I saw some US politicians call for the cancellation of the passports of these judges, denying them entry to the USA. Today I saw news of one judge's reaction to that: basically threw a temper tantrum and called the actions of the US politicians "unacceptable" as if there was anything he could do about it. Hilarious. I can only hope it escalates further and that it leads to their downfall.
It's pretty simple; he doesn't really have a chance against strong, authoritarianism governments which doesn't accept any sort of challenges so he typically complies to them without any questions. In Brazil, He initially seem to think that there's a good chance to win if he escalates it to a political fight but now he's slowly realizing that there's no solid political ground for him (especially as a foreigner) when he crossed the line against the Supreme Court, the highest constitutional authority.
>he doesn't really have a chance against strong, authoritarianism governments
I think Musk just realized Brazil was one those governments.
Honestly, to any foreigner wanting to learn what is going in the country, take a look at Glenn Greenwald coverage on Twitter, Gleen lives in Brazil and is one of the few journalists talking about what is happening in the country. The amount of crimes the Supreme Court is committing every single day is unbelievable. There is no due process.
The only democratic way for a foreign agent to meddle in another country's politics is by being elected.
Everything else is just bullshit.
What you are saying is that anyone can buy a media platform, whatever platform it is, and play 'arbiter' of truth? Because that's he is doing. He has no right to defy a judge's ruling. He's not a Brazilian citizen. He has no legal representation there. His company has no legal representation there.
His only standing is his ego, which is pretty fragile, given how much of a cry-baby he is.
Many people suffer from some sort of Musk derangement syndrome and put way too much focused on him to avoid discussing the facts of this case. Because they know the facts aren't on their side.
They make this to avoid discussing that the actions of the Brazilian Supreme Court were actually illegal. It's not him "playing arbiter of truth", you will find countless brazilian legal experts, such as Sebastião Coelho da Silva, saying that what the court has been doing in the last 4 or 5 years is totally illegal.
For instance, they have no power to open an investigation where they are the victim, the investigator, and judge, all in the same time and figure to go after random people around the country. Brazilian constitution doesn't allow prior censorship (which is what happens when you block someone's profile on social media, you block the things they would say in the future). The 8/1 rioters shouldn't been tried by the highest court because they have no legislative immunity, etc, etc. Crimes and more crimes.
Regardless of anything, refusing to obey those censorship orders coming from Brazilian Supreme Court were the morally right thing to do.
Who voted for these judges? Not a single person. Why do they get to ignore the laws put in place by our actual representatives?
Our constitution is ABSOLUTELY clear on this matter.
> Any and all censorship of a political, ideological and artistic nature is forbidden
1. The accounts that this judge is after were engaging in political speech.
2. A government official ordering these political accounts blocked and their political posts deleted matches the "any and all censorship of political nature" clause.
3. The order is therefore unconstitutional.
As you can see, it's a very simple argument. There should have never have been an order for Musk to defy to begin with.
Why do they keep getting away with it? How do you explain this?
Our representatives move to impeach this guy as demanded by the citizens they represent, then they back out at the last second. Their lawyers advised them to back out due to the risk of retaliation by the supreme court. How can you call this a democracy, when our elected representatives are clearly cowering in fear of an unelected judiciary?
Does that mean the US is also not a democracy because the supreme court judges are also appointed by the president, just like in Brazil?
> Our representatives move to impeach this guy as demanded by the citizens they represent, then they back out at the last second. Their lawyers advised them to back out due to the risk of retaliation by the supreme court. How can you call this a democracy, when our elected representatives are clearly cowering in fear of an unelected judiciary?
If that is true, he should definitely be removed. I definitely concede that he is overreaching in some decisions. I don't always agree with them. However, if a political actor says they are going to invade Planalto to overturn the government, that is an attack to democracy, and protecting the constitution is exactly the attribution of the supreme court.
Freedom of speech in Brazil, as far as I know, ends when you attack democracy. Democracy is the most valued thing in the constitution.
However, the noisy far right-wing in Brazil is very dramatic and will create arguments that are not falsifiable just to pretend they have an argument.
There is potential for that, yes. Fortunately the supreme court has not yet decided to ignore the other branches of government like the brazilian one has.
> Does that mean the US is also not a democracy because the supreme court judges are also appointed by the president, just like in Brazil?
Major SCOTUS decisions are often posted and debated here on HN. I've never seen a case where they monocratically violated the letter and the spirit of the law. Not once.
The judges there apparently respect the laws enacted by the elected representatives of the american people. This is evidence of a working democracy. So I don't have any reason to believe the USA is a dictatorship of the judiciary. I suppose it has the potential to become one but it sure as hell isn't one right now.
> I definitely concede that he is overreaching in some decisions. I don't always agree with them.
I'm happy we agree on at least that. Really. This matter is so polarized. It's been extremely difficult to find any common ground at all with my fellow brazilians.
> However, if a political actor says they are going to invade Planalto to overturn the government, that is an attack to democracy
The supreme court and electoral court have been violating the constitution since before the elections. I saw them disproportionally censor Bolsonaro and his supporters for "fake news".
Even that was a pitiful excuse. They censored people associating Lula with communism and socialism, for example. That's not even close to "fake news", the man is a self-admitted socialist. They censored people claiming he was a friend of the venezuelan dictator as "fake news", despite the fact he is clearly associated with him. They said it was "fake news" and we had to watch Lula roll out the red carpet for the guy months into his mandate. It was a nationwide gaslighting campaign.
So not only did they censor political speech which is already unconstitutional, the excuse they used was completely false too. And they got away with it.
I witnessed them censor a political documentary a priori. Before they even watched the thing, they decided it was "fake news" and blocked its publication. An obviously biased documentary whose contents only a fool would believe to begin with. Their censorship of it is one of the most notable facts in the history of our democracy. A priori censorship is something that hasn't been seen in this country since last century's military dictatorship. That was the moment I woke up and started paying attention to all this.
What are we supposed to do? Who are we supposed to turn to when the judiciary and the supreme court usurps all power? Who do we call upon when the guys supposed to enforce the constitution start violating it with complete impunity? Nobody does anything about it.
One answer to that is what happened on January 8th. These guys decided to turn to the brazilian military. They asked the military to bring order to this mess. Military said no. We all know the aftermath of it.
So I don't believe there was even an attempt at a coup. They did not try to seize power for themselves. It was just a standard protest that ended with vandalism, like most of the others. Had the military actually tried something, then it'd make sense to call it an attack on democracy, a coup attempt.
> protecting the constitution is exactly the attribution of the supreme court
I agree. I just don't believe they are doing that. They cannot protect the constitution by repeatedly violating it.
> Freedom of speech in Brazil, as far as I know, ends when you attack democracy. Democracy is the most valued thing in the constitution.
I believe it ends when someone picks up weapons and actually tries to seize power by force. That's the only moment where democracy is justified in defending itself. Not one second before.
The constitution even mentions that: paramilitary assembly is prohibited.
I have yet to find the article that says censorship of anti-democratic ideas is allowed. Those are all valid political positions as far as I know. And censorship of political positions is prohibited. There's nothing in there that says censorship of "fake news" is allowed either.
> However, the noisy far right-wing in Brazil is very dramatic and will create arguments that are not falsifiable just to pretend they have an argument.
Well, I am not really a representative of the brazilian right wing. I am often accused of being one but I'm not.
Do you disagree with the argument that I made above? It's not some prepared discourse. It's a good faith argument based on what I believe as a brazilian citizen, and was influenced by the many discussions I've engaged in about this topic here on HN.
I've never seen another brazilian refute it. I've had people argue those points with me by citing laws lesser than the constitution, by getting into pedantic arguments over the definition of censorship as if banning the brazilian right from social media and deleting their posts wasn't a clear case of it, by arguing about "isonomy" which is completely irrelevant, by straight up calling me a moron for presuming to do the judge's job as if the contradictions weren't there in plain sight for all to see. I've yet to see a single convincing argument that proves that what these judges are doing is not censorship.
Elon has been very clear about this: he follows the laws of each country. That is, if the government wants to restrict free speech, they must pass laws (or the equivalent in court) to do so and Twitter will follow their laws.
If their government wants to act in contrast to its own laws, then Elon will fight them.
He’s not trying to uphold some universal free speech liberty.
This doesn't track with how he arbitrarily bans people he doesn't like on Twitter. ElonJet, journalist, and people who campaign for Harris all come to mind. Nothing they did was against the law.
He himself is not a government so he does not hold himself accountable to the same free speech laws.
But he holds governments to their own laws. That is, he will comply with government censorship requests if they are within the bounds of their own laws.
I'm not arguing about that (I don't buy that either).
I'm saying that there was no change in laws or even in Supreme Court ruling since the block.
Elon Musk though it was unfair the decisions to block the accounts, and now he thinks it's fair. The only person who changed the opinion or ruling here is X.
A rouge billionaire with a popular social media platform might just be what is needed to get governments to properly regulate these sites that are the modern equivalent old school media companies, but are held to much lower standards.
> but it is also impossible to believe that Musk is some free speech warrior given how readily he complies with the demands of countries like Turkey and India
He didn't give up readily, those countries passed laws and even then Twitter sued the Indian government.
People only think he gave up readily in India because of the all the echo chamber comments repeating misinformation to make Musk look bad.
> I'm still trying to understand what exactly is the straw that broke the camel's back for Musk. Was it that he just didn't like his representation being allegedly threatened with jail
He felt that the judge's secret orders weren't lawful in Brazil, unlike in other countries.
"The instances cited by the government took place before X was acquired by billionaire Elon Musk in 2022. Under Musk's leadership, the company has complied with takedown orders."
Twitter refused pre-Musk, X doesn't seem to have a problem doing what Modi says as far as I can tell.
Continuing a lawsuit is not the same as agreeing with the initial claim.
Sometimes, new leadership of a company continues lawsuits because stopping them will incur a huge penalty (in fines, restrictions, control, ...). But that does not mean they will have it started to begin with.
The article is from September 2023, like a year after Musk's takeover of Twitter, and it talks about Twitter not complying with the Indian govt orders in 2023.
Have you tried thinking of his actions through a more than black and white perspective, from a military strategic perspective? E.g. Is it better for all Brazilians if there's a platform they are all already organized/organizing on to still have access to it, or none of them have access to it?
You think Twitter is some tool of the revolution of Brazil because they had a legal ruling against Elon. Surely I must be misinterpreting what you’re saying here.
Contrary I do believe Elon cares about ordinary Brazilians, and ordinary people globally; and what a neat mechanism that him creating highly competitive products and services, allows people to vote for him with their dollars, feeding him, his organizations, and arguably his missions.
Also, do you fully consciously notice your own bias when it comes to Musk? Did you notice using the word "caving" and some other options came to mind, or that is exactly and only what came to mind?
