After X’s Elon Musk declared he would reinstate accounts on the social networking site X that the judge had ordered blocked, a Supreme Court judge started an investigation into the billionaire on Sunday, intensifying the stalemate between Elon Musk and Brazil.

The owner of X, Elon Musk, has appealed a ruling by Justice Alexandre de Moraes directing the barring of specific accounts. Musk has declared himself an absolutist when it comes to free expression. He has demanded that Moraes step down and declared that X, the company that was once known as Twitter, will remove all limitations since they were unconstitutional.

Authorities in Brazil, Musk, and X have not revealed specific social media accounts were ordered to be blocked. It was unclear when the injunction was issued when X first posted on Saturday regarding the order to block.

Moraes is overseeing an inquiry into an alleged coup attempt by former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and is looking into “digital militias” that have been accused of disseminating hate speech and fake news during his administration.

Musk accused Moraes of “brazenly and repeatedly” undermining the Brazilian people and constitution in an X post on Saturday night.

“This judge has applied massive fines, threatened to arrest our employees and cut off access to X in Brazil,” he wrote in the article.

We will therefore most likely lose all of our revenue in Brazil and be forced to close our office there. However, values are more important than money.”

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The billionaire has promised to fight the decision barring X accounts in court if at all feasible.

In response, Moraes opened an investigation into what he described as an obstruction of justice on Sunday and included Musk in the probe he is conducting into fake news on social media.

In his ruling, Moraes stated: “X shall refrain from disobeying any court order already issued, including performing any profile reactivation that has been blocked by this Supreme Court.”

The judge said in a statement made available to the media that X will be fined 100,000 reais ($19,740) each day if it disobeys the order to block specific accounts.

The socialist administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva backed Moraes, with Solicitor General Jorge Messias denouncing Musk and advocating for social media network regulation to stop international platforms from breaking Brazilian regulations.

“We cannot live in a society in which billionaires domiciled abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law, failing to comply with court orders and threatening our authorities,” Messias said in an article on X.

A campaign opposing a planned internet control measure was spearheaded by officials at Alphabet’s Google and the social messaging network Telegram, and Moraes also ordered a probe into them last year.

The bill shifts the burden of finding and reporting illegal content from the courts to internet corporations, search engines, and social messaging platforms. In addition, it would levy steep penalty for noncompliance.

(Adapted from News18.com)