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Brazil’s first lady has sworn at billionaire Elon Musk at an event ahead of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro.
While advocating for tougher social media regulation on a panel about disinformation, Janja Lula da Silva appeared to be startled by a loud noise, joking, “I think it’s Elon Musk.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she went on to say, then swore at the billionaire, who owns Tesla and social media platform X.
Musk, who was picked to lead the Department of Government Efficiency in incoming US President Donald Trump’s administration, has a complicated relationship with Brazil and its left-wing government. X was briefly banned there this year.
He reposted a video of the incident, captioned “lol”.
In another post, Musk added two laughing emojis and wrote: “They are going to lose the next election”, apparently referring to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Workers Party.
Earlier this year, Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered a nationwide ban on X, after it failed to name a legal representative in the country and suspend accounts for allegedly spreading disinformation. The ban was lifted after the platform paid a $5.1m (£3.8m) fine more than a month later.
But Musk is also an ally of Brazil’s former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who was found guilty of discrediting the electoral system after losing in 2022. Despite the eight-year ban stopping him from running in an election, he has declared his intent to run again in the next elections, to be held in 2026.
Bolsonaro, who reposted a screenshot of the video and Musk’s response, said, “We now have another diplomatic problem.”
Leaders of the G20 nations will be meeting for the summit, which starts on Monday.
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