Trump Media and its fellow conservative-oriented social media company Rumble on Wednesday sued a Brazil Supreme Court justice whose clash last year with Elon Musk led to the blocking of Musk’s own social media firm, X, in that country.
The Tampa, Florida, federal court lawsuit accuses Justice Alexandre de Moraes of allegedly illegal attempts to censor a “well-known politically outspoken user” of Rumble with orders to suspend that user’s U.S.-based accounts.
The new lawsuit suit notes that Trump Media’s social media site Truth Social “relies on Rumble’s cloud-based hosting and video streaming infrastructure to deliver multimedia content to its user base.”
“If Rumble were to be shut down, that shut down would necessarily interfere with Truth Social’s operations, as well,” the suit says.
The suit was filed a day after Brazil’s prosecutor-general charged the country’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, with an attempted coup as he tried to remain in office following his 2022 election loss. Bolsonaro — who was invited to President Donald Trump’s inauguration last month — is accused of participating in a plot with nearly three dozen other people, which allegedly planned to poison current Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and kill Moraes.
Trump had been the majority owner of Trump Media stock shares. In December, the then-president-elect transferred his entire stake of shares to a revocable trust of which he is the sole beneficiary.
The suit mentions Musk’s feud with Moraes, when the justice suspended X in Brazil for Musk’s defiance of requests to ban some user accounts and remove content that Moraes said violated the country’s laws.
Brazil’s Supreme Court also suspended bank accounts in that country of X and Starlink, the satellite internet service provider owned by Musk’s company SpaceX, as part of that battle.
Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla, has been tasked by Trump to oversee a wide-ranging effort to cut federal government suspending and employee headcount.
Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes in a statement Wednesday on the suit said that the company “is firmly committed to upholding the right to free expression.”
“This is not just a slogan, it’s the core mission of this company,” Nunes said. “We’re proud to join our partner Rumble in standing against unjust demands for political censorship regardless of who makes them.”
Trump Media last week reported a net loss of nearly $401 million for 2024, and revenue of just $3.6 million.
The company in a statement last week said that about half of the $61 million in cash used in operating activities in 2024 “comprised legal expenses including costs related to the Company’s March 2024 merger with a special purpose acquisition company.”
“Partly as a result of obstruction by the Biden-era Securities and Exchange Commission, which turned the process into one of the longest SPAC mergers in history, [Trump Media] incurred significant legal expenses related to its merger and has brought litigation seeking to recoup its damages,” the suit said.