A hacker posted racist and antisemitic messages to the official social media account representing the beloved “Sesame Street” character Elmo on Sunday.
The pirated posts on the Muppet’s X account, which has nearly 650,000 followers, also included expletive-laced commentary about President Trump and the ongoing fight among some Trump allies over documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, who died in a New York City prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
“Elmo’s X account was compromised yesterday by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts,” a spokesperson for the Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that produces the long-running children’s show, said in a statement Monday. “We are working to restore full control of the account.”
The inflammatory messages have been deleted, and the account has not posted since the hacker’s takeover.
The account is known for its normally uplifting posts often signed with heart emoji, so the hateful messages drew intense interest online and backlash for the unknown intruder.
The social platform X, which is owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, has faced backlash over the spread of antisemitic rhetoric on the site.
xAI apologized to users Saturday after its chatbot, Grok, began posting antisemitic messages following a recent “anti-woke” update.
The White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, previously helmed by Musk, called for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to be abolished and an end to federal spending on the PBS, which was the longtime home network for “Sesame Street.” Sesame Workshop announced a new partnership with streaming platform Netflix in May.
