Elon Musk's X says it has paid Brazil fines of around $5.2 million to have ban lifted

ELON MUSK’S X says it has paid all the fines it incurred in Brazil where the platform was blocked by a judge in a high-profile showdown with Musk over disinformation.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who ordered the shutdown of X in Latin America’s biggest country, said today that the social network had informed the court “that the fines which were imposed on it have been fully paid.”

He said he had ordered judicial authorities to verify that was the case.

A source close to the matter confirmed to news agency AFP that the fine of around $5.2 million had been settled in full.

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The clash between Moraes and Musk morphed into a high-stakes tussle testing the limits of both freedom of expression and corporate responsibility in Brazil.

A furious Musk hit out at Moraes over the ban calling him an “evil dictator” and dubbing him “Voldemort” after the villain from the “Harry Potter” series.

But in recent days he had been notably more muted on the subject and X, formerly known as Twitter, has appeared eager to comply with Moraes’ demands in order to have the suspension lifted.

X had more than 22 million users in Brazil before Moraes blocked it.

Musk had refused to remove dozens of right-wing accounts accused of spreading disinformation and to name a new legal representative in the country as ordered.

X briefly resumed service in mid-September after a technical workaround which it claimed was “inadvertent,” but went back offline again after Moraes threatened it with hefty fines for non-compliance with the ban.