A driven judge who doesn’t waiver
Before the Bolsonaro case began, de Moraes’ public image was one of a backward, conservative judge.
He frequently was mocked on social media for two videos. One shows him destroying a small marijuana plantation with his bare hands. The other exposes his discomfort among Indigenous Brazilians, who danced as they repeated his name.
Now social media is filled with images of de Moraes. Right-wing content shows the judge asking people for their private information if they don’t want to be jailed, while left-wing voters portray him as Superman, an unstoppable hero rising to the task. Some memes mock his seemingly more aggressive decisions when his soccer club Corinthians loses.
Friends, adversaries and colleagues have said over the years that de Moraes does not waiver when on duty.
“History teaches us that impunity, omission and cowardice are not options for pacification, because the apparently easier path, and only apparently, is that of impunity, omission, leaving traumatic scars in our society and corrodes our democracy,” de Moraes said during the first week of Bolsonaro’s trial.
A university professor and former public prosecutor, he was appointed to the country’s top court in 2017 by President Michel Temer, a conservative, after a stint as his justice minister. At his confirmation hearing, some people who became known Bolsonaro supporters publicly praised de Moraes, such as Damares Alves, an evangelical leader who is now a senator.
At the time, Alves said de Moraes was an unbiased, serious judge who has the right values.
Fast forward to 2025 and many of those Bolsonaro allies now call de Moraes a “communist” and a “dictator” who deserves to be impeached and removed from the court for allegedly overstepping in the Bolsonaro investigation, including ordering house arrest for the embattled far-right leader.
“I have to apologize to my colleagues at the Workers’ Party,” Alves said hours before Bolsonaro was convicted. “They said we would change our minds about Alexandre de Moraes and they were right.”
One of the criminal counts against the former president makes reference to military allies plotting to shoot the justice dead.
Temer, the former president, noted in a May interview with daily newspaper Folha de S.Paulo that many alleged coup plot participants were initially jailed but then released by de Moraes.
“He is no radical,” Temer said.
Opponents respond with fights and sanctions
But not everyone agrees he does a good job, including figures outside Brazil. “Alexandre de Moraes is an evil dictator cosplaying as a judge,” Musk said. The billionaire attacked de Moraes last year after the justice threatened to suspend the social medial platform X in the nation of more than 200 million people.
The disagreement involved a monthslong dispute with Musk over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. In the end, the tech billionaire complied with all of de Moraes’ demands, including blocking certain accounts from the platform, paying outstanding fines and naming a legal representative in Brazil, and the justice restored the social media’s service.
Recently, Trump’s administration imposed a 50% tariff hike on Brazilian exports with vocal support from Bolsonaro’s sons. The US also sanctioned de Moraes over alleged suppression of freedom of expression and overseeing the Bolsonaro trial.
A justice who comes with public security experience
De Moraes previously identified with center-right administrations and politicians. Between 2015 and 2016, he was Sao Paulo state’s public security secretary in a conservative setting.
Some of that experience became obvious during his term as president of Brazil’s top electoral court, overseeing the 2022 election.
His efforts to fight disinformation and protect the integrity of the electoral process were praised by moderates, international institutions and supporters of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as key to the results being respected.
The electoral court role was added to one he received at the start of the Bolsonaro administration as rapporteur of a “fake news” probe focused on online attacks against members of the Supreme Court. De Moraes was handpicked based on his security experience in Sao Paulo.
The two investigations resulted in arrests of political figures, blocks on social media accounts and lawsuits against business leaders, but in some ways also converged in the coup plot.
As the verdict and sentencing phase of Bolsonaro’s trial ended Thursday, de Moraes made an effort to reign in his emotions as his peer Flávio Dino took almost five minutes to praise his work.
“Justice Alexandre sees this as finishing line,” Dino said. “But there will be other trials, other tasks. This is a high point in his career, and we have to pay a tribute to him. That’s not very common in our community.”
