Overview

• Sesame Workshop says it regained full control of Elmo’s verified X account on July 14 and deleted all antisemitic and racist posts by an unknown hacker
• This marks the second breach of the children’s character’s page since June, following a similar incident that also saw conspiracy-laden hate speech published
• Screenshots of the deleted messages calling for violence against Jewish people and demanding release of Epstein files have been widely shared across social platforms
• The Anti-Defamation League condemned the hack as an appalling misuse of a beloved character’s platform to normalize violent anti-Jewish hate
• The incident underscores ongoing security gaps and content moderation failures on X, coming days after its AI chatbot Grok also posted hate speech