Elon Musk's social media platform, X, announced on Saturday that it is shutting down its operations in Brazil effective immediately to ensure the safety of its employees. Despite the closure of its local operations, the X service will remain accessible to users in the country.

Musk stated that the decision was driven by demands from Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes, which would have required X to secretly violate Brazilian, Argentinian, American, and international laws. "X has no choice but to close our local operations in Brazil," Musk explained.

According to the platform, Judge de Moraes secretly threatened one of X's legal representatives in Brazil with arrest if the company did not comply with orders to remove certain content from its platform. "Last night, Alexandre de Moraes threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders. He did so in a secret order, which we share here to expose his actions," X revealed.

The company argued that the judge's actions were not in line with respecting the law or due process and instead chose to intimidate its staff in Brazil.

"As a result, to protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operations in Brazil, effective immediately. The X service remains available to the people of Brazil," the company said.

X criticized the judge's actions as incompatible with democratic principles. "The people of Brazil have a choice to make-democracy or Alexandre de Moraes," the platform posted.

The company also noted that despite numerous appeals to the Supreme Court going unheard, and despite the Brazilian public being kept in the dark about these orders, Judge de Moraes continued to pursue this course of action, even though the Brazilian staff had no responsibility or control over content blocking on the platform.