SpaceX president and chief operations officer Gwynne Shotwell has asked Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexander Moraes to let her firm's Starlink internet service function normally in Brazil. Her comments come in the aftermath of an escalating feud between SpaceX CEO and X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk, who has gone head to head with Moraes over the latter's decision to block Musk's social media platform in the country.
Starlink was caught in the middle after it refused court orders to block access to X, a move that threatened the service's presence in Brazil. Shotwell's comments follow Starlink's announcement that it will comply with the order after Moraes ordered the freezing of Starlink's finances in Brazil.
SpaceX President Shares Starlink's Ability To Provide Underserved Children With Internet Access In Brazil To Convince Judge Moraes To Stop "Harassing" The Service
According to statistics that the SpaceX service shared on X, as of mid-August, Starlink had more than a quarter of a million users in Brazil. It was caught in the middle of X's feud with Brazil, which saw Musk restore access to accounts believed to have caused riots in the country, when Moraes froze Starlink's finances in Brazil and ordered the recovery of fines against X from the SpaceX company.
Moraes ordered the ban on August 30th and the decision was made because Starlink and X belong to the same 'economic umbrella,' with the internet service refusing to comply with the X ban unless its finances were frozen. Using the economic entity argument, Moraes tried to recover fines levied on X through Starlink. However, the internet service filed its own legal proceedings in the Supreme Court to have his order reversed.
In a post on X earlier today, SpaceX's president, Gwynne Shotwell, made her first public comment on her firm's troubles in Brazil. Sharing a picture of her visit to a school in the Amazon, Shotwell stated that it "was one of my favorite days at work" since it brought Starlink's "high-speed internet to a school in the Amazon." The image was "just a few of the hundreds of thousands of amazing Brazilian people whom we are fighting to keep connected," added the SpaceX president, as she requested Judge Moraes to "please stop harassing Starlink and let us keep serving the people of Brazil."
Starlink first started to roll out in Brazil in January 2022, and its presence in the Amazon is among the many examples of the SpaceX subsidiary providing internet access to far flung and remote regions. One of Starlink's biggest use cases has come in Alaska, where it has out competed traditional satellite internet providers based on cost.
Shotwell's comments followed Starlink's announcement that it had decided to comply with Moraes' X ban. Its earlier comments had shared that Moraes' fines against X were "unconstitutionally" levied, and the latest bit on the Brazil tussle saw Starlink add that despite "the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing of our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil."
About the author: Ramish is a seasoned technology writer and editor with more than a decade of experience. He specializes in semiconductor fabrication and market analysis. With a background in finance and supply chain management - via his bachelors in Finance and a micromasters in supply chain management from MIT - Ramish combines financial rigor with deep industry insight to deliver accurate and authoritative coverage.
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