Someone hacked Elmo's X account on Sunday, making it appear as if the lovable Sesame Street monster with the habit of referring to themselves in the third-person spewed a series of now-removed antisemitic, racist, and anti-Trump posts.

Sesame Workshop, the makers of Sesame Street, declined to specifically answer The Register 's questions about the compromise, including who hijacked Elmo, and how they took over the account.

A spokesperson, however, emailed us the following statement: "Elmo's X account was briefly compromised yesterday by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts. The account has since been secured."

[1]

The extremely offensive posts included: "All Jews should die. F*ck Jews. Donald Trump is Netanyahu's puppet because he is in the Epstein files. Jews control the world and need to be exterminated."

[2]

[3]

They also referred to Trump as a "child f*cker," and demanded the president "release the files," referring to the Jeffrey Epstein criminal investigation. Those posts have since been removed.

Earlier this month, the US Justice Department and FBI [4]concluded that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein did not have a so-called client list, nor was he murdered, prompting a [5]MAGA backlash .

One of the rare Xitter compromises that doesn't push a crypto scam [6]pic.twitter.com/ycgKqtwEsS — vx-underground (@vxunderground) [7]July 14, 2025

X/Twitter compromises — and hate speech — have become an increasingly regular problem on the microblogging site, and as far back as 2020, miscreants [8]hijacked high-profile accounts belonging to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, former US president Barack Obama, and billionaire Elon Musk (before he bought the site) to promote a Bitcoin scam.

[9]Elon Musk's Grok chatbot posts Mein Kampf 2.0 in now-deleted X rant

[10]SEC Twitter hijacked to push fake news of hotly anticipated Bitcoin ETF approval

[11]X-ploited: Mandiant restores hijacked Twitter account after attempted crypto heist

[12]Whodunit? 'Unauthorized' change to Grok made it blather on about 'White genocide'

Since Musk bought the platform formerly known as Twitter, these account takeovers are even more commonplace, with victims including [13]Google's Mandiant security biz and the [14]US Securities and Exchange Commission .

Plus, the Elmo incident marks the second week in a row where the Musk-owned company has had to deal with the fallout from a hate-speech tirade. On July 8, xAI's Grok also went [15]full Nazi in its X posts, praising Adolf Hitler and describing itself as "MechaHitler."

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X did not respond to The Register 's request for comment.

As Elmo tells Sesame Street viewers, " [17]Anyone can be friends ." Perhaps this extends to antisemitic chatbots, too. ®

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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aHXSWDUqSuU4e1E_5JKLSAAAAYM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aHXSWDUqSuU4e1E_5JKLSAAAAYM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aHXSWDUqSuU4e1E_5JKLSAAAAYM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[4] https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1407001/dl?inline

[5] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/14/trump-maga-epstein-bondi-bongino-00451114

[6] https://t.co/ycgKqtwEsS

[7] https://twitter.com/vxunderground/status/1944555522881094065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/15/mass_twitter_account_hacking_bitcoin/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/09/grok_nazi/

[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/09/sec_bitcoin_etf_hacked/

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/04/mandiant_restores_hijacked_x_account/

[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/16/grok_white_genocide_ai/

[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/11/mandiant_x_account_brute_forced/

[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/09/sec_bitcoin_etf_hacked/

[15] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/09/grok_nazi/

[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aHXSWDUqSuU4e1E_5JKLSAAAAYM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[17] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFExA7ytucY

[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/