'Stop harassing Starlink,' SpaceX president tells Brazilian judge

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell made a public plea to one of Brazil’s top judicial figures on Thursday, asking him to “please stop harassing Starlink” amid the ongoing battle in the country against Elon Musk’s social media business X. 

Musk has been engaged in a months-long dispute with the Brazilian courts, which have been waging a war against X for hosting accounts that the courts say spread extremism and misinformation.

After X refused to comply with court orders last month asking it to remove certain accounts, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered an immediate, country-wide suspension of the platform. That ban, backed by Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was unanimously upheld earlier this week. 

But the feud has been spilling over to Musk’s other businesses, chiefly SpaceX, which sells its satellite internet service Starlink in the country. Immediately after banning X, Brazil reportedly froze Starlink’s company accounts, in order to guarantee X pay the more than $3 million in fines it owes Brazilian courts, local media reported.  

That order is specifically focused on Starlink Brazil Holding Ltda and Starlink Brazil Servicos de Internet Ltda, which have provided internet access to around 250,000 customers inside the country since January 2022. Many of those customers are located in regions of the country underserved by traditional telecom infrastructure. It’s likely one of Starlink’s largest markets outside of North America. 

SpaceX did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. 

The court also issued an order to Starlink demanding that it block access to X, which the firm originally said it would disobey; the satellite communications firm backtracked a day later and said that it would comply with the order. 

Last month on X, Starlink said the order freezing its assets is “based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied—unconstitutionally—against X.” In a separate post on September 3, Starlink said it had initiated legal proceedings in Brazil against the order. 

“Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing of our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil,” it said. 

SpaceX later sent a company-wide email to employees advising them against traveling to Brazil, even for personal reasons. The company is also relocating a small group of SpaceX employees that are based in Brazil. The email and relocations were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Shotwell’s communication is the latest effort to move the ball in this complex financial and geopolitical snarl.

The entanglement of Starlink in the conflict is the strongest example yet that political leaders and regulators may have few qualms about issuing penalties against Musk’s various businesses, regardless of whether they are the subject of a dispute.