President Bolsonaro and billionaire businessman Elon Musk at the Connect Amazon event this Friday in Porto Feliz, an hour from São Paulo. KENNY OLIVEIRA (AFP)
Businessman Elon Musk made a brief trip to Brazil this Friday despite being embroiled in several crises, with the purchase of Twitter on hold and a sexual harassment complaint he denies. During his visit, the world’s richest man met President Jair Bolsonaro at an Amazonian event at a luxury hotel in Porto Feliz, an hour from São Paulo. Musk has offered his satellites to the Brazilian government to bring internet to 19,000 schools in remote regions and also to monitor the world’s largest tropical forest. Bolsonaro has used Musk’s presence to praise him as a symbol of freedom, one of his campaign banners.
The billionaire told a handful of businesspeople and students that he was coming to Brazil to see the country’s economic potential up close. The meeting between the two is the result of the contacts that the Bolsonaro government had with Musk about the possibility of implementing the internet via satellite thanks to Musk’s SpaceX technology through the company Starlink. The businessman is looking for clients and has landed in Brazil at a time when Bolsonaro is seeking re-election against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is leading the polls but by a dwindling margin.
Earlier this year, Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) approved operations of Starlink, which aims to place satellites in low orbit that will bring the internet to the most inaccessible places where fiber and companies providing the internet can’t reach. The entrepreneur’s idea, as he said before landing on Twitter, is to bring the web to 19,000 schools. The problem, according to the Brazilian press, is the price.
Bolsonaro also wants to use the collaboration with Musk to neutralize criticism of his policies towards the Amazon and his image as an environmental villain: “We count on Musk to make the Amazon known to everyone in Brazil and the world to show the exuberance of this region , how it is preserved and what harm are being done to us by those who spread lies about this region.”
Few details were offered about the project to bring the Internet to schools or the satellite monitoring of the Amazon. The world’s largest tropical forest and the deforestation that is undermining it have been monitored for years with powerful satellites, a task carried out by an official Brazilian body, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE).
Musk presents his offer on Twitter as a fight for freedom of speech, something that fits the Brazilian president’s interests like a glove. As Bolsonaro has explained: “The most important thing about his presence is something intangible. Today we could call it the Myth of Freedom.” What he didn’t say, but every Brazilian knows, is that Bolsonaro is nicknamed “Myth” even by his supporters. And for the president-turned-outcast in several international forums, meeting the public with the billionaire businessman five months before the presidential election is golden.
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The far-right would be happy if Musk would definitely buy Twitter and lift the veto imposed on Donald Trump, as he has suggested, because he himself has had several clashes with tech companies that have partially suspended or deleted his messages.
The magnate landed on a private flight hours after posting that SpaceX had paid $250,000 to silence a stewardess who had accused him of sexual harassment, which he flatly denied in a tweet.
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