Supreme Court of Brazil x Elon Musk: a good pissing contest
Everything indicates that the owner of Space X smelled Jair Bolsonaro's stinky underwear and got high.
Recently, Elon Musk said on his X microblog (formerly Twitter) that, in defense of freedom of expression, he would no longer comply with the decisions of the Brazilian Court. Immediately, a judge from the Supreme Court of Brazil included him as a suspect of committing several crimes in the Fake News Inquiry. This is in addition to warning that the reactivation of Twitter profiles suspended by court decision will result in monetary punishments and the possible suspension of the microblog in Brazil.
The dispute between Elon Musk and the Supreme Court of Brazil can be considered a typical “pissing contest”, that is, a competition between rivals to determine superiority, predominance, or leadership. called also pissing match.
However, it is much more than that. What is at stake is not the egos of those involved but rather a principle: does the Brazilian State (or any other State) have the power to bend the owner of an American Big Tech?
In the US, legislation allows entrepreneurs to do almost anything they want. They do not need to treat employees equally and can set their own salaries with complete freedom. Wage distortions in the US are abysmal. CEOs like Elon Musk can earn 350 times more than their employees, something that certainly makes some of them imagine that they are feudal princes totally above the law.
Elon Musk is a caricatured figure. He has already been filmed smoking marijuana and saying that he will stage a coup d'état wherever he wants. He even challenged the Russian Federation during the Ukrainian War by stating that he would make his satellites available to the Kiev regime. He backed down because he must have realized that the Kremlin has more firepower than his companies.
His wireless internet system was widely used by gangs of criminal miners who invaded indigenous territories in Brazil. Despite this, he continues to sell Star Link in our country and almost won a juicy contract with the Ministry of Education. Not to mention disrupting Starlink's profitable business in the Amazon region.
By challenging the Supreme Court of Brazil, Musk demonstrates his vocation as a provocateur. It is difficult to say whether the US diplomatic authorities will get into trouble with Brazil over a South African citizen naturalized in the United States. Most likely this will not happen. Despite Elon Musk's fortune (189.2 billion dollars) being more than 100 times greater than American investments in Brazil (1.7 billion dollars), relations between States are qualitatively different from those between citizens of one of them and the authorities on the other. Furthermore, people die but states do not cease to exist when a billionaire becomes food for worms.
Elon Musk's ignorance about Brazil seems evident to me. Before provoking our country, he should study the relations between my country and the USA a little. I recommend three seminal books by Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira: Presença dos Estados Unidos no Brasil, Brasil-Estados Unidos: A Rivalidade Emergente e As relações perigosas: Brasil-Estados Unidos (Presence of the United States in Brazil, Brazil-United States: The Emerging Rivalry and Dangerous relations: Brazil-United States). However, I don't believe he really has the patience to study anything.
Used to being pampered by the press, the owner of Space X, Tesla, etc… created his own myth. In it, Elon Musk is chosen by God, nature, AI or any other deity, to save humanity from extinction through the colonization of Mars. Anyone who stands in his way is irrelevant and can and should be crushed like a bug. The fact that his personal fortune is greater than the GDP of several countries contributes greatly to Elon Musk believing he is more powerful than the local rulers of small rich countries or large poor countries.
The Supreme Court of Brazil does well not to kneel at the altar of this neoliberal ogre. However, and this needs to be said here, it is not enough to include Elon Musk in the Fake News Inquiry. He needs to start suffering greater losses in Brazil, including and mainly because he sold Starlink to gangs of criminal miners. Furthermore, this mega-entrepreneur's companies are also suspected of indirectly receiving gold criminally extracted from Brazilian indigenous territories.
Brazilian justice can and should piss on Elon Musk. Brazil (GDP of 10.9 trillion dollars) is much bigger than any American billionaire.
not an endorsement, just leaving this for you to read and comment
https://korybko.substack.com/p/its-alexandre-de-moraes-not-elon