Tesla chief and X owner Elon Musk has said that the social media company needs to move all its employees in Brazil to a safe place, otherwise the will do a “full data dump”. Mr Musk’s reaction was in response to an investigation ordered by a Brazilian judge on X over allegations of spreading disinformation. The Brazilian Supreme Court ordered X, formerly known as Twitter, to block certain accounts. Mr Musk is challenging the verdict, also calling for the judge’s resignation.
“We need to get our employees in Brazil to a safe place or otherwise not in a position of responsibility, then we will do a full data dump,” the billionaire said in a post on X today.
It was in response to a tweet by Nikolas Ferreira de Oliviera, a Brazilian politician affiliated to the Liberal Party.
He followed it up with another post that showed how urgent it is to get the X employees out. “They have been told they will be arrested,” said Mr Musk.
The posts generated many reactions on social media with users showing support to Mr Musk and X.
“Safety has to come first,” commented one user. “This is a disturbing situation,” said another.
Others wanted to know how many employees does X have in Brazil.
The decision was given by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is leading an investigation into an alleged coup attempt by former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, is one of the Supreme Court justices most active in combating online misinformation in Brazil.
Last year, Moraes also ordered an investigation into executives at social messaging platform Telegram and Alphabet’s Google, who were in charge of a campaign criticizing a proposed internet regulation bill.
