Elon Musk meets Brazil President Bolsonaro, focus on Amazon rainforest plans

Tesla and SpaceX chief government officer Elon Musk met with Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday to debate connectivity and different tasks within the Amazon rainforest.

The assembly, held in an expensive resort in Sao Paulo state, was organized by Communications Minister Fábio Faria, who has mentioned he’s searching for partnerships with the world’s richest man to deliver or enhance web in faculties and well being services in rural areas utilizing expertise developed by SpaceX and Starlink, and in addition to protect the rainforest.

“Super excited to be in Brazil for launch of Starlink for 19,000 unconnected schools in rural areas & environmental monitoring of Amazon,” Musk tweeted Friday morning.

Illegal actions within the huge Amazon rainforest are monitored by a number of establishments, such because the nationwide area company, federal police and environmental regulator Ibama.

But deforestation within the Brazilian Amazon has surged beneath Bolsonaro, reaching its highest annual fee in additional than a decade, in accordance with official knowledge from the nationwide area company. Bolsonaro’s critics say he’s largely guilty, having emboldened loggers and land grabbers along with his fervent assist for improvement of the area.

During the occasion, Bolsonaro mentioned the area was “really important” to Brazil.

“We count on Elon Musk so that the Amazon is known by everyone in Brazil and in the world, to show the exuberance of this region, how we are preserving it, and how much harm those who spread lies about this region are doing to us,” he mentioned.

Bolsonaro and Musk appeared in a video transmitted dwell on the president’s Facebook account, standing collectively on a stage and answering questions from a gaggle of scholars.

“A lot can be done to improve quality of life through technology,” Musk advised the group.

Although not one of the college students requested about Musk’s potential buy of Twitter, Bolsonaro mentioned that it represented a “breath of hope.”

“Freedom is the cement for the future,” he mentioned, calling the billionaire a “legend of freedom.”

Musk has supplied to purchase Twitter for $44 billion, however mentioned this week the deal can’t go ahead till the corporate gives details about what number of accounts on the platform are spam or bots.

Like Musk, Bolsonaro has sought to place himself as a champion of free speech and opposed the deplatforming of people together with his ally, former U.S. President Donald Trump.

The assembly with Bolsonaro happens simply 5 months earlier than the far-right chief will search a second time period in a hotly anticipated election.