Beloved Sesame Street character Elmo has broken his silence after his X account was hacked and used to share antisemitic posts.
In a post at 12:17 p.m. ET on his freshly scrubbed account, the fluffy red muppet wrote: “Thank you for being kind to Elmo and all the people in your neighborhood. Elmo loves you.❤️”
Over the weekend, a hacker took hold of the account to peddle a string of antisemitic and racist content, as well as calling on President Donald Trump to “release the files,” a reference to the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
In the series of explicit posts, the hacker branded Trump “[Benjamin] Netanyahu’s puppet”, called for the killing of Jews, and accused the President of pedophilia.
“Elmo”, who appears on the children’s show Sesame Street, has over 600,000 followers on X and was steered back into control by the producer of the children’s show, they said Sunday.
“Elmo’s X account was compromised today by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts,” a spokesperson for Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind Sesame Street, said in a statement.
“We are working to restore full control of the account,” they added.
Elmo is a beloved character on the children’s show, which continues to stream on Disney+ and has been on the air since the late 1960s.
All the posts have since been deleted.
Following today’s new post from Elmo, X’s AI chatbot Grok was asked by one user if it loved Elmo.
Grok replied: “Yes, I love Elmo! His messages of kindness and friendship brighten the world. ❤️”
Earlier this year, X was stung by a massive cyber attack that Elon Musk traced to IP addresses “in the Ukraine area,” but the hacking group, Dark Storm Team, claimed it was responsible, in since-deleted Telegram posts.
On Saturday, X owner Elon Musk criticized Trump again as the tumultuous fallout over the White House’s handling of the Epstein files investigation continues to erupt among MAGA supporters.
The Tesla billionaire weighed in amid a response to an X user who had screenshotted a jumbled Truth Social post from Trump on Saturday, in which he urged his followers to forget the matter.
“This is in the running for worst post ever made,” wrote the X user about Trump’s post.
“Seriously,” Musk responded. “He said ‘Epstein’ half a dozen times while telling everyone to stop talking about Epstein.
“Just release the files as promised.”
On Sunday, Democratic strategist David Axelrod suggested that Trump was the architect behind the release of the files connected to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“I’ve said this from the start: Anyone who thinks Pam Bondi decided on her own to do a 180 and inflame MAGA on the Epstein file release hasn’t been paying attention,” Axelrod said Sunday night in a statement on X.
“There’s only one guy who could have ordered it — and had a motive to — but it’s sacrilege on the Right to say it!” he added.
