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"Due to the demands of Alexandre De Moraes' 'Justice' in Brazil, which require us to (secretly) break Brazilian, Argentine, American and international laws, X has no choice but to shut down our operations in Brazil," Musk writes.

"Last night, Judge Alexandre de Moraes threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we did not comply with his censorship orders. He did so with a secret order, which we share here to denounce his actions,' reads the communication from X. 'Despite the fact that our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court have not been heard, the Brazilian public has not been informed of these orders, and our Brazilian team has no responsibility or control over the blocking of content on our platform, Moraes chose to threaten our team in Brazil rather than comply with the law or due process. Consequently, to protect the safety of our team,' it explained, 'we have decided to close our operations in Brazil, effective immediately. The X service continues to be available to the Brazilian population'.

'We are deeply saddened to have been forced to take this decision. The responsibility lies solely with Alexandre de Moraes,' the statement concludes. His actions are incompatible with a democratic government. The Brazilian people must make a choice: democracy or Alexandre de Moraes'.

The platform also published the judge's order in which it set a two-hour deadline to comply with the decision, as well as establishing a daily fine of more than eight thousand euro (50,000 real) in the event of non-compliance.

The skirmishes between Musk and de Moraes have been going on for months now. The judge is considered by the conservative former president, Jair Bolsonaro, to be among his most bitter enemies. Indeed, De Moraes has opened numerous investigations against the former head of state and is conducting investigations into the spread of fake news.