Starlink will now be free in Brazil since remote hospitals, schools use it: Musk

https://www.metropoles.com/brasil/musk-starlink-dara-internet-de-graca-ate-resolver-bloqueio-de-contas

by ivewonyoung • 2 years ago

95 78 2 years ago

LorenDB• 2 years ago

Relevant Elon tweet: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1829317832489816083

tbrownaw• 2 years ago

So it's for existing customers, and it's because they're unable to accept payment for reasons that aren't the customers' fault.

supriyo-biswas• 2 years ago

To be fair, Starlink can't continue offering services to new customers either because they've been effectively forbidden from doing business there.

(The merits of the case and each parties viewpoints are a separate matter.)

scarab92• 2 years ago

Is this judge freezing SpaceX’s finances because Twitter won’t censor speech?

Those are two completely different companies.

isodev4• 2 years ago

I don’t think the technicalities of incorporation and branding matter that much, it’s a “Elon Musk company”, unfortunately.

Rinzler897• 2 years ago

Why is them being separate companies relevant when they have the same ownership?

If a judge goes after you they go after all your assets.

bozonaro• 2 years ago

let me fix that for you: ..because Twitter won’t suppress criminal speech. (see if it makes sense now).

energy123• 2 years ago

"Free... until this matter is resolved."

decremental• 2 years ago

Good move, Elon. Very cool

bpodgursky2• 2 years ago

Set aside the details of the case — if money actually translated into power, the richest man in the world wouldn't be struggling to strong-arm an unelected bureaucrat in a country of middling importance.

Kind of obvious IMO that money translates into less real-world power than ever before in history. In 1800, this judge would be at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. In 1950, he'd be deposed in a paid coup. In 2024... the richest man in the world complains about him on Twitter.

aplummer• 2 years ago

I think you are just looking at one specific issue on the wrong timescale. Palms will be greased and he will get what he wants.

zadler• 2 years ago

Im not disagreeing, but how do you figure that it’s obvious and in 1950 or 1800 it would have been different?

rgbrenner• 2 years ago

Brazil is both richer and more powerful than Musk. It's one of the top-10 largest economies in the world. They have so much more money than Musk they can maintain exclusive control over land, raise a military, and enforce their own laws and regulations within their borders. Never seen Musk even attempt anything like that.

joegibbs2• 2 years ago

Brazil the country is, but Brazil the country is also made up of people, and none of them individually hold $250 billion of assets that they could use against someone - that's about 10% of Brazil's GDP (not that GDP/net worth is a particularly good comparison for a ton of reasons, but it gives a general indicator).

100 or 200 years ago someone with that kind of wealth could definitely have had a country strong-armed into doing what they want - someone like the owners of the United Fruit Company or the East India Company.

gary_0• 2 years ago

That's an interesting thought. Although that might say more about geopolitical dynamics (US/Brazil, and in general) than the power of the billionaire class.

fitsumbelay• 2 years ago

I'm curious why you'd call Brasil a country of middling importance. What countries in the Western Hemisphere other than US and Canada have larger economies, military and local impact? Having the Amazon rainforest within its borders alone probably makes it an extremely significant nation internationally.

teractiveodular• 2 years ago

The really important countries are known as superpowers for a reason, and "BRICS" pretentions aside, Brazil is not in that club, it can't project power outside its immediate neighborhood and doesn't really even try. Economically, it's in the same league as Mexico.

bpodgursky2• 2 years ago

Brazil is fairly large in nominal terms but projects essentially no presence internationally, either diplomatically, economically, culturally, or militarily. It barely can even project influence within South America, despite being half the continent.

I'm not trying to diss the country, not every country could or should aspire to hegemony... but Brazil could sink into the Atlantic and I'd read about it in the NYTimes two weeks later.

mr_toad2• 2 years ago

After the US and China every country is middling, economically speaking. There’s a huge gap between China and the next largest country (Germany).

imutemyteam92• 2 years ago

Oh how fun life is going to be when LLMs take over 99% of jobs and literally everyone is a slave to the whims and fancies of powerdrunk idiots :)

ivewonyoung2• 2 years ago

SpaceX statement.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1829253524842303678.html

r721• 2 years ago

Reuters story:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/brazilian-court-suspend-x...

billti• 2 years ago

Wow. I thought Reuters was an upper tier publisher. That is totally unreadable on my iPhone. The page is jumping all over the place as I try to scroll.

waihtis5• 2 years ago

Minister of the Supreme Federal Court Alexandre de Moraes has frozen Starlink's bank accounts in regards to an ongoing complication between X (Twitter) and the state of Brazil.

It should be noted these are two entirely different companies. Hard to see this as anything else except Brazil having a "rocket man bad"-moment.

Rinzler897• 2 years ago

Why is them being separate companies relevant when they have the same ownership? If a judge goes after you they go after all your assets.

aaomidi2• 2 years ago

Americans and Europeans are used to a very specific definition of liability when it comes to large businesses.

waihtis5• 2 years ago

The legal dispute isn't with Elon Musk (the person) but X (Twitter)

However, the judge is punishing Elon (the person) via collateral damage to his other businesses

If you can't see any difference here I really can't help you

Sparyjerry2• 2 years ago

One of their shareholders is the same. Their total and majority ownership is completely different.

wenc2• 2 years ago

Public companies are not personal assets though. These are public corporations with limited liability, not sole proprietorships.

Limited liability is what made modern commerce what it is today.

venusenvy472• 2 years ago

Brazil has strong antitrust laws and can determine that different companies with a common major stakeholder are an "economic group". They have had issues in the past with wealthy people controlling multiple companies and creating an anti-competitive market, so they created these laws to combat such a thing.

waihtis5• 2 years ago

Thank you, this is actually useful context

pr337h4m• 2 years ago

some context: https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/brazils-most-power...

geitir• 2 years ago

This thread has been shadow banned

dfadsadsf• 2 years ago

US should respond symmetrically and freeze accounts of some random(with Durov arrest), EU (threatening letter to Musk) and UK (prison sentences for mildly offensive tweets) are fighting to limit free speech under very similar pretenses that freedom of the press was limited in Nazi Germany or USSR (fighting foreign influence, “misinformation”, protecting kids) Some societies are robust and can afford free press/free speech while keeping peace major Brazilian company. /s On a serious note it’s interesting to see how countries around the world from France and internal cohesion. Modern multicultural and multi-ethnic states in EU may have to become way more authoritarian to keep going.

pjerem3• 2 years ago

Some societies are robust and can afford free press/free speech while keeping peace

Oh yeah. The US were an interestingly robust society and democracy to observe since the Trump election.

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

Related from earlier:

Starlink's financial assets frozen in Brazil

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41392962

sidcool• 2 years ago

Why the hell does Elon want to meddle in other countries' internal strifes? And why should a foreign country accept influence from another country's business man? Ethics aside, this is about something else.

pixxel• 2 years ago

Take a day off.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41397639

Diederich• 2 years ago

Does anyone have a sense of how practically difficult it would be to detect an active Starlink installation?

Starlink will now be free in Brazil since remote hospitals, schools use it: Musk

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