According to a ruling issued on Friday by the country’s top judge, Alexandre de Moraes, X must pay a final fine before Elon Musk’s social network is allowed to go back online in Brazil.

The platform was blocked nationwide at the end of August, a decision that was upheld by a panel of judges on September 2nd. Earlier this month, X filed paperwork to tell Brazil’s Supreme Court that it was now following orders it had previously defied.

As Brazil’s G1 Globo reported, X must now pay a new fine of 10 million reals (about $2 million) for two more days of non-compliance with court orders. X’s legal representative in Brazil, Rachel de Oliveira, also has to pay a fine of 300,000 reals.

The case dates back to April, when de Moraes, the minister of Brazil’s Supreme Court, known as the Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF), opened an investigation against Musk and X for alleged obstruction of justice.

Musk had vowed to defy court orders to block certain accounts in Brazil. He called the court’s actions “censorship” and railed against de Moraes online, calling the judge a “criminal” and encouraging the U.S. to cut off foreign aid to Brazil.

In mid-August, Musk closed the X offices in Brazil. That left his company without a legal representative in the country, a federal requirement for all tech platforms to do business there.

On August 28, the court threatened de Moraes with a ban and fines if, among other things, federal agents.

Earlier this month, the STF froze the business assets of Musk companies, including both X and the satellite internet company Starlink, which operates in Brazil. The STF said in court filings that it views Starlink parent SpaceX and X as companies working together as related parties.

Musk wrote in a post at the time

As head of the STF, de Moraes has long supported federal regulations to curb hate speech and misinformation online. His views drew opposition from tech companies and far-right officials in the country, as well as former President Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters.

Bolsonaro is under investigation as he is suspected of staging a coup in Brazil after losing the 2022 presidential election to current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

While Musk calls for retaliation against de Moraes and Lula, he has worked with Bolsonaro for years and praises him. The former president of Brazil authorized SpaceX to commercially provide satellite internet services in Brazil in 2022.

Musk describes himself as a free speech advocate, but his track record suggests otherwise. Under his leadership, at the insistence of the government, X removed content critical of the governing parties in Turkey and India. According to an analysis by tech news website Rest of World, X approved more than 80% of government deletion requests in 2023 compared to the previous year.

X faces increasing competition in Brazil from social apps such as Threads from Meta and Bluesky, which have attracted users during the lockdown.

Starlink also faces competition in Brazil from eSpace, a French-American company that this year received permission from the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) to provide satellite internet services in the country.

Lukas Darien, a lawyer and law professor at Brazil’s Facex University Center, told CNBC that the STF’s enforcement actions against X will likely change the way big tech companies view the court.

“There is no change in the law here,” Darien wrote in a message. “But large technology companies in particular are now aware that the laws apply regardless of the size of a company and the extent of its reach in the country.”

Musk and representatives for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Late Thursday, X Global Government Affairs released the following statement:

“X is committed to protecting free expression within the limits of the law, and we recognize and respect the sovereignty of the countries in which we operate. We believe that the Brazilian people’s access to

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