The first lady of Brazil turned heads when she dropped an f-bomb directed at Tesla CEO Elon Musk during an official event over the weekend.
At the time, Brazil’s first lady, Janja Lula da Silva, was speaking about misinformation on social media during a pre-G20 social event on Saturday. The G20 summit began on Monday in Rio de Janeiro.
Lula, who is married to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, stopped mid-speech when she heard a ship’s horn blaring in the distance.
‘I think it’s Elon Musk,’ the first lady joked in Portuguese. ‘I’m not afraid of you, by the way.’
‘F–k you, Elon Musk,’ Lula added in English, prompting cheers from the audience.
The clip, which was posted on X, drew the attention of Musk, who responded with laughing emojis.
‘They will lose the next election,’ the entrepreneur wrote.
Brazil banned X in September, prompting outrage across the world. Brazilian Supreme Court’s Justice Alexandre de Moraes imposed the ban, citing misinformation on X, which the judge felt was not adequately moderated on the platform.
The country lifted the ban a month later, and de Moraes wrote that the decision ‘was conditioned, solely, on [X’s] full compliance with Brazilian laws and absolute observance of the Judiciary’s decisions, out of respect for national sovereignty.’
‘X is proud to return to Brazil,’ X said in a statement at the time. ‘Giving tens of millions of Brazilians access to our indispensable platform was paramount throughout this entire process. We will continue to defend freedom of speech, within the boundaries of the law, everywhere we operate.’
The Brazilian first lady’s joke took place two days before the G20 summit officially began. President Biden was present at the summit, though he did not appear during the annual family photo with fellow world leaders and missed the photo-op ‘for logistical reasons,’ the White House said.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.