Elon Musk-controlled satellite internet provider Starlink has told Brazil’s telecom regulator Anatel it will not comply with a court order to block social media platform X in the country until its local accounts are unfrozen.
Anatel confirmed the information to Reuters on Monday after its head Carlos Baigorri told Globo TV it had received a note from Starlink, which has more than 200,000 customers in Brazil, and passed it onto Brazil’s top court.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week ordered all telecom providers in the country to shut down X, which is also owned by billionaire Musk, for lacking a legal representative in Brazil.
The move also led to the freezing of Starlink’s bank accounts in Brazil. Starlink is a unit of Musk-led rocket company SpaceX. The billionaire responded to the account block by calling Moraes a “dictator.”
You can limit liability by creating separate entities and this is absolutely the standard, at least in the US. You would have to be very ignorant, or have sought no outside counsel, if you have some kind of decently profitable business and haven’t done so. It’s the whole point of these legal structures, such as LLCs. I don’t know the particulars of the case, nor the particulars of Brazilian law, so I don’t really know if it the case here.
That being said, speaking from an only slightly informed US perspective, if they are suing Musk himself, then yes they can absolutely go after his assets, which would include ownership in Starlink and X. However, if they fined X, it wouldn’t even remotely be a stretch that they do not have the legal authority to lock down Starlink accounts, as they are two separate entities that are presumably linked only by common figurehead.
State fines against a company aren’t a civil matter. Brazil isn’t suing anyone, they’re enforcing compliance with law by means of fines and the laws governing that would be written shoddily indeed if you could avoid fines by incanting “limited liability” like some sovereign citizen. “I’m not breaking laws, I’m doing limited liability business”.
Nor did I say anyone was suing anyone. I was just drawing up an example of a case how they could go after both entities. In this case, it appears the fine was levied against X, and not Musk.
And no one is talking about “avoiding fines.” WTF are you even on about? We are talking about them seizing Starlink assets because of fines levied against X. Musk doesn’t even own a majority share of SpaceX (who owns starlink). You are confusing “the face of” with “the legal entity.”
You are. Who is going to pay the fine against X? If Starlink doesn’t like it they’re free to sue Musk for the money back. They can cancel a couple of his shares to cover it. I don’t care. Brazil doesn’t care. The fine has been issued, and it’s going to be paid.
Blatantly lying about what I’ve said just indicates to me that you have no interest in getting to the truth, so I won’t bother any further.