Elon Musk stated on Tuesday that employees of X (formerly Twitter) in Brazil should be relocated to a safe location, or else the company would release all data, in response to an investigation into fake news allegations ordered by a Brazilian Supreme Court justice.
“We need to get our employees in Brazil to a safe place or otherwise not in a position of responsibility, then we will do a full data dump,” Musk mentioned in an X post.
The owner of X claimed that the employees were informed they might face arrest.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Brazilian Supreme Court has involved Elon Musk in an ongoing probe into fake news dissemination and initiated a separate investigation into the entrepreneur for suspected obstruction.
De Moraes accused Musk of launching a public “disinformation campaign” on Saturday regarding the court’s actions, which continued the following day. Musk declared that X would no longer comply with the court’s orders to block specific accounts.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who took over Twitter in late 2022, accused Justice de Moraes of stifling free speech and violating Brazil’s constitution.
He mentioned on X that users could potentially bypass any platform shutdown by using VPNs, or virtual private networks.
Musk further stated on Tuesday, “He demanded that X suspend accounts of people who raised corruption concerns while insisting that X pretend the suspension was for violating our terms of service! We obey the laws of countries even if we disagree with them, but this requires violating the laws of Brazil.”
As for the charges against Elon Musk, he is under investigation for his suspected intentional criminal use of X as part of a broader inquiry into digital militias spreading defamatory fake news and threats against Supreme Court justices. The probe will look into whether Musk committed obstruction, criminal organization, and incitement.
“The flagrant conduct of obstruction of Brazilian justice, incitement of crime, the public threat of disobedience of court orders and future lack of cooperation from the platform are facts that disrespect the sovereignty of Brazil,” de Moraes wrote on Sunday.