Legal representatives for Elon Musk's social media platform X (formerly Twitter) have filed a formal petition with Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal, or STF), requesting authorization to immediately restore access to the platform across the country after fulfilling all judicial conditions set by Justice Alexandre de Moraes. The filing follows nearly a month-long nationwide suspension ordered on August 30 in one of X's largest global user markets, home to more than 21 million active accounts.

According to court documents submitted in Brasília, X Brasil Internet Ltda. confirmed that it has satisfied the three core requirements mandated by the Supreme Court: appointing a duly accredited legal representative in Brazil, blocking nine accounts under investigation for alleged anti-democratic disinformation and hate speech, and settling 28.6 million reais (approximately $5.24 million) in accumulated financial penalties.

Breakdown of the 28.6 Million Reais Fine Settlement

The financial penalties stemmed from multiple phases of the months-long legal standoff between Musk and Justice de Moraes. Approximately 18.35 million reais had already been frozen and transferred to federal accounts earlier in September from bank accounts belonging to X Brasil and Musk's satellite internet provider Starlink Brazil. The remaining balance included an additional 10 million reais fine imposed after a temporary cloud-routing update briefly allowed Brazilian users to bypass telecom blocks on September 18, plus a 300,000 reais penalty assessed against the company's legal representative.

To satisfy the corporate governance requirement that originally triggered the August suspension, X formally reappointed Brazilian attorney Rachel de Oliveira Villa Nova Conceição as its local legal administrator and submitted notarized power-of-attorney documents validated by the São Paulo Board of Trade. Earlier in August, X had shuttered its Brazilian office and left the post vacant after contesting orders to remove certain political commentary accounts.

“Having demonstrated full compliance with all judicial orders, appointed local legal representation, and settled financial penalties, X respectfully requests the restoration of platform access in Brazil.”

Judicial Verification and Anatel Unblocking Process

Following the submission of payment receipts, Justice de Moraes ordered the court secretariat and Banco do Brasil to verify that the funds were deposited into the designated judicial account and to obtain a formal opinion from the Prosecutor General's Office (PGR). Once the court certifies that the payment transfers are complete and parked in the proper federal treasury account, de Moraes is expected to instruct the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) to notify Brazil's more than 20,000 internet service providers to lift the block.

Legal scholars and digital-governance analysts noted that X's reversal underscores the regulatory leverage held by major national jurisdictions with large digital populations. For X, regaining access to the Brazilian market is critical for stabilizing Latin American advertising revenue and reversing user migration to rival microblogging platforms such as Bluesky and Meta's Threads, which added millions of Brazilian sign-ups during the september blackout.

Sources