Calling Elon Musk’s satellite-based internet service provider Starlink’s backtracking late on Tuesday an anticlimax would be an understatement. In a statement posted on X, Starlink said it would accept and implement a Brazilian supreme court justice’s order to block the tech magnate’s social media platform, X (formerly Twitter). “Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil,” the company statement informed. “We continue to pursue all legal avenues, as are others who agree that @alexandre’s recent order violate the Brazilian constitution.”

The above statement is in stark contrast to the previous statement of  Starlink. Previously, Starlink had informally intimated the telecommunications regulator Anatel that it would not obey until Justice Alexandre de Moraes reversed course. Musk has been persistently posting in recent days, castigating de Moraes as a criminal. “This evil tyrant is a disgrace to judges’ robes,” Musk wrote on X together with a photo of de Moraes some 17 hours before Starlink publicized its decision to comply with the order.

De Moraes froze Starlink’s accounts last week as a measure to coerce it to cover X’s fines that already exceeded $3m, reasoning that the two firms are part of the same economic group. Starlink filed an appeal, its law firm Veirano informed the Associated Press on 30 August, but has refused to comment further in the days since. Just days later, the justice ordered the suspension of X for not naming a local legal representative, as required in order to get notifications of court pronouncements and quickly take any necessary action – particularly, in X’s case, the takedown of accounts. A supreme court panel unanimously indorsed the block on Monday, undermining efforts by Musk and his supporters to brand the justice as an authoritarian renegade determined on censoring political speech in Brazil.

Had Starlink continued to defy de Moraes by providing access, Anatel could eventually have confiscated equipment from Starlink’s 23 ground stations that ensure the quality of its internet service, Artur Coimbra (an Anatel board member) said on a video call from his Brasília office.

Some legal experts have already started questioning de Moraes’s basis for freezing Starlink’s accounts, given that its parent company (SpaceX) has no integration with X. Musk noted on X that the two organizations have different shareholder structures.

X has clashed with justice de Moraes over its hesitancy to block users – mostly far-right activists facing accusations of undermining Brazilian democracy and associates of the former president Jair Bolsonaro – and has alleged that de Moraes wishes an in-country legal representative so that Brazilian authorities can exert influence over the company by having somebody to arrest.