Elmo hack marks latest antisemitic incident on X

Zoom in: The posts included calls for violence against Jews and demanded the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.

• The hacker also mimicked the muppet's habit of referring to himself in the third person.
• The posts have been deleted, but access to the account was still being restored as of Monday.

What they're saying: "Elmo's X account was compromised by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts," said a spokesperson for Sesame Workshop, the makers of "Sesame Street."

• The spokesperson said they are working to regain control of the account.
• X did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.

Zoom out: Hate speech has run rampant on Musk's X, which has been accused of poor content moderation.

• Weekly rates of hate speech rose about 50% in the months after Musk purchased X in 2022, per a report published in February.
• In 2023, some of X's biggest advertisers said they were pausing ads on X after Musk backed an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

• Last year, a federal judge dismissed Musk's lawsuit against a research group that documented an uptick in hate speech. The judge said the lawsuit was "unabashedly" aiming to punish the defendants.

Grok, the AI chatbot integrated into X, has repeatedly used antisemitic language in its replies.

• Earlier this month, Musk said Grok's responses were because the platform was being manipulated by its users' prompts.
• xAI, the company behind Grok, apologized on Saturday for the chatbot's "horrific behavior."

Go deeper: Response to Elmo's "checking in" post underscores U.S. mental health crisis