Elon Musk gets surprising defender after X was banned in Brazil: The Washington Post

Despite The Washington Post's frequent sharp criticism of Elon Musk, the paper's editorial board criticized the Brazilian government for moving to ban X, the social media platform owned by the tech billionaire.

"The billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX is correct when he says a Brazilian jurist’s move to unilaterally prohibit X, which he owns, from operating in the country is an assault on internet speech around the world," The Post wrote in an editorial headlined, "In this free speech fight, Musk’s X has marked the right position."

A Brazilian judge has ordered the "immediate and complete suspension" of the social media platform until it complies with all court orders and pays existing fines. Another Musk-led company, Starlink, is also facing a legal battle to remain alive in Brazil after a Brazilian Supreme Court justice ordered that Starlink's financial accounts in Brazil be frozen. 

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Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes' actions to shut down X, have come at "a substantial cost to free expression," the Post wrote, "with mandates for removals and even arrest warrants often issued under seal and with scant reasoning to support them." 

The paper noted, "The recent move against X is both more of the same and just plain more: After X ignored the court’s orders to block more than 140 accounts, the justice warned he would arrest its legal representative in Brazil." 

As a result, Musk's team left the country, which allowed the situation to escalate further in Brazil. "That lack of a physical presence, in turn, led Mr. Moraes to instruct that X be blocked for all 220 million Brazilians — who, he said, could face fines of almost $9,000 a day if they tried to circumvent the restriction," The Post reported. 

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"If this sounds authoritarian, it is," the paper said. "Whatever the threat to democracy that the accounts Mr. Moraes wanted gone might have posed, the threat from one government official limiting the speech of 220 million people is greater." 

"Taken together with Mr. Moraes’s choice to freeze the assets of internet-provider Starlink, a separate company of Mr. Musk’s, this move aligns Brazil not with the free world but with the likes of China and Russia," The Post wrote. 

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The paper's defense of Musk comes after the billionaire has routinely been a target of criticism for the Post. The paper repeatedly attacked Musk as he sought to take ownership of then-Twitter in 2022. 

Just last month, a Post reporter suggested the Biden White House should censor "misinformation" from an interview Musk was about to conduct with former President Trump. 

Fox Business' Stepheny Price contributed to this report.