How Elon Musk Made the Internet Obsessed With Free Speech in Brazil

It seems that since my article in The Epoch Times, all eyes around the world have turned to Brazil, in a battle worthy of a movie, with Elon Musk as the hero and Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes as the villain.

Curiously, I had concluded that previous column by questioning Elon Musk’s lack of response to the “Twitter Files Brazil,” despite his commitment to ensuring free speech worldwide. But just a few hours after the article was published, Mr. Musk decided to take a stand on what is happening in Brazil. Responding to one of my “tweets” (or posts as he prefers now), he stated that he would lift the sanctions imposed on the platform by the Brazilian court, marking the beginning of a clash between one of the most powerful men in the world and a bureaucrat with a superiority complex, with the freedom of expression in the largest country in South America at stake.

Mr. Musk made startling revelations: Justice de Moraes, he said, had threatened to impose massive fines, arrest X employees, and cut off all access to the social network in Brazil if the company did not comply with his illegal orders. Mr. Musk emphasized that he would likely lose all revenue from X in Brazil and have to close all offices in the country, but stated that “principles matter more than profit”—a significant statement, considering that Brazil is the fourth-largest market for the platform, with nearly 30 million users, representing more than 14 percent of the country’s population.

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