A Brazilian Supreme Court justice seized about $3 million in frozen funds of social media platform X and satellite-based internet service provider Starlink, both companies controlled by billionaire Elon Musk.
SAO PAULO (AP) — A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Friday seized about $3 million from bank accounts belonging to social media platform X and satellite-based internet service provider Starlink, both companies controlled by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
The move by Justice Alexandre de Moraes was aimed at collecting funds that are equivalent to the amount that X owes to the country in fines. The bank accounts of the two companies have since been unfrozen.
Legal analysts have questioned de Moraes’ prior decision to freeze Starlink’s bank account to pay for cases related to X. While Musk owns both X and SpaceX, which operates Starlink, the two companies are separate entities.
Separate entities that decided to be in contempt of court over the same issue. That sort of shit justifies piercing the corporate veil. Starlink backtracked after they realized the absolute fuck up they performed, but that judge viewed it as too little, too late.
While they are separate entities, its not like musk treats them as such when it benefits him. he redirected a ton of GPUs from tesla to twitter, for example
Musk isn't hurt by the amount of money he's fined, but it annoys him terribly that he can't control the situation and that his usual tools for getting his way are useless. It is a pebble in his boot that he can't bluster, cajole, or bribe his way out of the problem like usual.
This was the only they were gonna get paid. Musk couldn't even be bothered to pay the agreed lease on his own headquarters. And that was before he jammed his head up Trump's asshole so he's probably even more contemptuous about paying his dues now.