New York.- SpaceX has warned its employees not to travel to Brazil amid an escalating dispute between Elon Musk and a judge in the Latin American country’s highest court that is spilling over into the billionaire’s businesses.
In an email to employees last week seen by Bloomberg, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said she must “convey the seriousness of this situation” and that employees should “avoid any travel, for work or personal reasons, to Brazil.”
The email was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, which also noted that a small group of non-Brazilian SpaceX employees located in Brazil are being relocated out of the country. A representative for Space Exploration Technologies Corp, as the company is formally known, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The new travel limit is the latest fallout from a months-long dispute between Musk, the world’s richest person, and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is leading efforts to combat fake news and hate speech that he says are damaging Brazil’s democracy.
Moraes moved to ban Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, and locked the bank accounts of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite unit to force payment of fines levied against the X platform. “This order is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be liable for fines levied, unconstitutionally, against X,” Starlink said last week, adding that it intends to “address the matter legally.” It’s standard for companies to review their safety protocols and warn employees not to travel to certain areas depending on changing dynamics with customers and foreign governments. The Supreme Court order focused on two companies registered in Brazil: Starlink Brazil Holding Ltda and Starlink Brazil Servicos de Internet Ltda.
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