In recent days, Elon Musk's attacks on Brazil’s Supreme Court (also known as STF) have publicly rekindled an old relationship between the tech businessman and the Brazilian far right. The government of former President Jair Bolsonaro (Liberal Party) got closer to the billionaire and made it easier for Starlink, Musk's satellite internet company, to arrive on the Brazilian market. The service the company provides is offered to illegal miners, as Brazil de Fato showed.
The report found that the same WhatsApp accounts that resell Starlink's internet were advertising, in 2023, the purchase of gold and cassiterite illegally extracted from the Yanomami Indigenous Land in Roraima state. Therefore, those involved are part of the illegal mining trade.
Starlink's arrival in Brazil was marked by irregularities. The company arrived in the country promising to supply internet to 19,000 schools in remote areas of Brazil, such as the Amazon, which it failed to do.
In 2022, Brasil de Fato revealed that the government of Bolsonaro interfered with the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel, in Portuguese) to authorize the operation of the company's satellites on Brazilian territory.
Approval was granted by Anatel on January 28, 2022, the beginning of the last year of Bolsonaro's administration. Months later, at a hearing in the Chamber of Deputies, the then Minister of Communications Fábio Faria admitted he had worked to speed up the Agency's authorization. He said, however, that he didn't just act on behalf of Musk's company, but also lobbied for other companies in the sector.
In another chapter in the relationship between Musk and the Bolsonaro government, the former secretary of the Ministry of Communications who admitted to having contacted Anatel was elevated to a member of the regulatory agency's Board of Directors in April 2022.
At the time of its implementation in the country, Starlink's commercial model flouted Anatel's rules and Brazil’s Consumer Defense Code. The company did not inform customers of its address or company name, which violated the agency's rules. The information was published in September 2022 by Folha de S. Paulo.
Edited by: Thalita Pires
