Elon Musk lashed out at Australia's prime minister on Tuesday after a court ordered his social media company X to take down footage of an alleged terrorist attack in Sydney, and said the ruling meant any country could control "the entire internet."

At a hearing overnight, Australia's Federal Court ordered X, formerly called Twitter, to temporarily hide posts showing video of the incident earlier this month, in which a teenager was charged with terrorism for knifing an Assyrian priest and others.

The billionaire, who bought X in 2022 with a declared mission to save free speech, although some groups have suggested that harmful content has increased on the site, leading some advertisers to flee.

A spokesperson for e-safety commissioner Julie Inman Grant said the takedown notice was for the attack footage only, and not for "commentary, public debate or other posts about this event, even those which may link to extreme violent content."

On Tuesday, Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said it had used "internal tools" to detect and block copies of videos of the church attack and an unrelated, deadly stabbing at a shopping mall in Sydney two days earlier.

Alice Dawkins, executive director of internet policy non-profit Reset.Tech Australia, said Musk's comments fit "the company's chaotic and negligent approach to the most basic user safety considerations that under previous leadership, the platform used to take seriously."

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