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.”
Unfortunately, the US is now fully reliant on SpaceX for access to space now that they decided to rely on corporate spacecraft rather than building our own and Boeing has proven themselves unreliable since that change was made, and now that they finally have a craft they ended up stranding astronauts on the space station until SpaceX can rescue them due to defects. Plus we can’t use Russia like we did after the shuttle program ended but corporate space travel wasn’t there yet. And SpaceX isn’t publicly traded to where it might be possible that enough investors could pressure Musk to cave.
So I doubt anything will come of it. Brazil will rattle their sabers. Musk will stand his ground, and the US will stay on Musk’s side while pretending as much as possible to be staying out of it.
Haha, that sort of dependency can be just as dangerous for a company as it is for the state. You start fucking around like that and antitrust and defense production act start knocking.
Is there precedent for the US government just flat out nationalizing a company like SpaceX?
Don’t have to. Defense production act allows them to legally direct the company without owning it.
No 737 has ever leaked helium. So why did the Star liner leak helium? Why couldn’t it just pop an emergency exit hatch mid flight like standard procedure? Why? Why? So many questions!