announced that the service would be suspended in Brazil with immediate effect, but would continue to be available to users in the country. Alexandre de Moraes, President of the Supreme Electoral Court and Judge of the Supreme Federal Court, threatened to arrest one of X’s legal representatives if he “did not comply with his censorship orders.”

Accordingly Reutersde Moreas demanded that X remove certain content from its platform. Instead of complying with this request, X decided to shut down its local operations “to protect the safety of our employees.”

According to X, de Moraes made this threat in a “secret order” that he made public. The demand would require us to “secretly violate Brazilian, Argentine, American and international law.”

“While our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court have not been heard, the Brazilian public has not been informed of these orders, and our Brazilian employees have no responsibility or control over whether content is blocked on our platform, Moraes has chosen to threaten our employees in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process,” X said in a statement on his Global Government Affairs account. “(de Moraes’) actions are incompatible with a democratic government. The Brazilian people must make a choice – democracy or Alexandre de Moraes.”

Musk has been railing against de Moraes for months. In April, he said he would defy lawmakers’ orders to block certain accounts in Brazil, saying they were unconstitutional. In response, de Moraes announced that Musk would comply with any order from Brazil’s highest courts.

That same month, the House Judiciary Committee alleged that the Brazilian government was trying to force X (and other social media platforms) to censor more than 300 accounts, including those of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a member of the country’s Federal Senate, and a journalist.

X does not have a PR team that could be reached for comment.