Brazilian judge investigates Elon Musk for obstruction of justice involving X

Brazil’s Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes on Sunday launched an investigation into Elon Musk on charges that his social media company X obstructed justice, according to a court filing.

Musk questioned Moraes’ decision to order his social media platform X to block certain accounts.

Musk said earlier Sunday that X would lift the restrictions because they were unconstitutional.

“X must not violate any issued court order, including the execution of any profile reactivation blocked by the Supreme Court,” Moraes said in his decision.

The judge said that if X failed to comply with the order to block certain accounts, the company would be fined 100,000 reais ($19,740) per day.

Last year, Moraes also ordered investigations into executives at social messaging platform Telegram and Alphabet’s Google, who were responsible for developing an internet regulation bill.

The bill places a responsibility on internet companies, search engines and social messaging services to find and report illegal material rather than turning it over to the courts, and imposes hefty fines on companies that fail to do so.