Brazil blocks Starlink bank accounts(msn.com) |
Brazil blocks Starlink bank accounts(msn.com) |
X decided to challenge, Moraes raised the fine to 20k USD daily, they continued defying the order, until they closed the company thinking this is a legal way to circumvent the debt they owe to the state.
Moraes found out that there are links between Starlink and X (Musk), so he decided to go after Starlink instead, blocking their bank accounts until X pays what they owe to the Brazilian state.
Musk doesn’t own a majority of Starlink or SpaceX. (SpaceX owns Starlink. SpaceX is controlled by Musk. But he owns less than 50% of the shares.)
Is this legal in the US?
If company A owns B and C; and C does something bad, can A or B be fined?
Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41392962
source: Brazilian activist report
I’m sure if the Feds raid gold mining they’ll find some copper wires and other infrastructure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil
> Is this legal in the US?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil#Un...
Starlink does nothing special to enable mining. Thousands of people and industries use it. It’s just infrastructure.
I’m not arguing for replacements. I’m arguing that it’s stupid to blame infrastructure for the sins of the people using it.
That’s like blaming vegetables because Hitler was a vegetarian.
Just like the mining operations use petroleum to mine. Petroleum directly enabled mining.
Mining uses electricity. Electricity directly enabled mining.
Directly enabling something doesn’t matter. If the tool is made to only do that, then it does. There are a lot of cases in the US about this. Like Betamax case where the court ruled that just being used for something illegal doesn’t give culpability, it’s necessary to be made specifically to do something illegal.
If starlink specifically added functionality to enable illegal mining then you might have a valid argument.
Action was against X, and then Musk shut down X's Brazilian office and left outstanding debts. The supreme court evaluates that X and Starlink have same ownership and therefore Starlink (which still has local representation) is being held responsible for X's delinquent debts.
I am not a lawyer so can't comment on legality of this but it's obvious that X's stance on free speech is incompatible with Brazil's legislation on hate speech. My opinion is that X never had any intention to observe Brazilian law, and ran out of options to delay and deflect.
If this happened in a liberal democracy there is due process, you can't unilateraly freeze a corporation account, they would prevent whatever company is in violation of the law from doing business in the country and that's it. If the owner can be charged for wrongdoing you can do that too, and then finally if the owner has outstanding debts to the country you can liquidate their assets to recoup the amount.
This is not what happened here, a company is accused of breaking the law so another company which, beside partial ownership has nothing to do with it is getting its account frozen.
It's weird to see people cheering in the comments for this. If Jeff Bezos gets in hot water with the US government over Blue Origin, should they just freeze Amazon's account?
X was operating in Brazil while being maliciously non-compliant, in a manner obviously directed by Elon.
Ergo, Elon is playing games to operate global companies without complying with local legislation.
I am pleased to see a government willing to put a stop to this madness, and I am comfortable with piercing the corporate veil to prosecute this bad actor who is at the root of public and consistent malfeasance. The US government seems entirely unable or unwilling to offer any enforcement.
This defeats the purpose of corporations.
They don’t though. And this is obvious even with the most basic web search. To me this looks like political intimidation and retribution by an out of control Supreme Court justice (Alexandre de Moraes). It’s a shame to see Brazil turn into a lawless banana republic.
But that’s not relevant. Because starlink is usable by everyone. Do you think they should have some way to prevent mining companies from using it? Is there a law in Brazil that prevents starlink from selling to miners?
The correct move is to go after Musk directly.