Source : BRICS NEWS
BRASÍLIA, October 26, 2026 – Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk has described the results of Brazil’s presidential runoff as “pretty weird”, according to BRICS News, adding a prominent international voice to the doubts raised by defeated candidate Flávio Bolsonaro over President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory.
“JUST IN: Elon Musk says Brazil’s presidential election results are ‘pretty weird’,” BRICS News said in a post on X on Monday. The post did not say what specifically Musk found unusual about the outcome, and he did not set out any evidence of wrongdoing in the remark reported by BRICS News.
Shortly after the post appeared, Musk also shared on his own X account a post by American commentator Jack Posobiec that said: “A judge loyal to Lula ordered voting extended – an result like this in Brazil is unprecedented.” The repost refers to the voting-hours extension that has become the centre of the dispute over the result.
A contested extension
Late on polling day, Supreme Federal Court (STF) justice Cristiano Zanin ordered voting to be extended by two hours, until 7pm Brasília time, after Lula’s coalition complained that reduced bus services in several states were keeping voters away from the polls, Reuters reported. Zanin later clarified, together with the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), that the extra time applied only to polling stations still open at 5pm. Zanin served as Lula’s lawyer in the Lava Jato corruption cases and was appointed to the Supreme Court by Lula in 2023.
Flávio Bolsonaro, the Liberal Party (PL) candidate, called the ruling “unacceptable” on Sunday night and said it was “impossible to recognize the election results”, adding that his legal team would ask for the election to be annulled. However, his own campaign had also asked the TSE for a two-hour extension in municipalities in São Paulo, Paraná and Santa Catarina hit by heavy rain and flooding, according to Brazilian outlets R7 and O Globo.
The result
With 99.99 per cent of ballot boxes counted, Lula won 51.78 per cent of the vote against 48.22 per cent for Flávio Bolsonaro, a margin of more than 4.4 million votes, O Globo reported, securing a fourth, non-consecutive term. The heads of the Supreme Court, the TSE, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies have all recognised the outcome. The win was a remarkable comeback: Flávio Bolsonaro had finished ahead in the first round on October 4 with about 47 per cent to Lula’s 45 per cent, and prediction markets had made him a strong favourite in mid-October.
Electoral law specialists interviewed by BBC News Brasil said the chances of the runoff being annulled were remote, given the size of Lula’s lead and the fact that both campaigns had sought longer voting hours.
Musk’s history with Brazil
Musk’s comments carry particular weight in Brazil, where his platform X has clashed repeatedly with the authorities. From August 30 to October 8, 2024, Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered X blocked nationwide after Musk refused to appoint a legal representative in the country, a dispute that also saw Starlink’s assets in Brazil frozen. On October 14 this year, Brazil’s federal prosecutors opened an inquiry into how Meta and X moderate political content during the campaign, after civil-society groups logged more than 1,000 cases of blocked accounts, deleted posts and suspensions, The Rio Times reported.
Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, has positioned himself as an ally of US President Donald Trump. There was no immediate response from Lula’s government or the TSE to Musk’s remarks. LNA will update this story as more information becomes available.
Source: BRICS News on X, with additional reporting from Reuters, O Globo, R7, BBC News Brasil and The Rio Times.
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