Sesame Workshop, the company behind the popular childrens’ show, confirmed that Elmo’s X account was hacked after it shared several posts containing profanity and antisemitic hate speech on Sunday.
“Elmo’s X account was compromised today by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts,” the U.S. television production firm confirmed in a statement cited by Fox News, adding: “We are working to restore full control of the account.”
The now-deleted social media posts included statements such as “Kill all Jews,” as well as “Elmo says all Jews should die ... Donald Trump is Netanyahu’s puppet because he is in the Epstein files. Jews control the world and need to be exterminated,” among other violent threats.
Another post called U.S. President Donald Trump a “child f**ker” and called on him to “release the files,” in an apparent reference to a client list allegedly kept by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Elmo, the “Sesame Street” character who often teaches his audiences about the importance of kindness, has almost 650,000 followers on X.
“Antisemitism is unsettlingly ubiquitous on social media,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (DN.Y.) said in response to the hack. “Anyone who denies its pernicious and pervasive presence—on digital platforms and in society at large—is willfully blind to a reality staring us all in the face,” he added.
On Saturday, Elon Musk’s xAI, the company behind the Grok chatbot, issued a public apology after Grok posted a series of antisemitic and violent messages, including responses that had praised Adolf Hitler.
The company attributed the “horrific” incident to a software update that, for 16 hours, caused Grok to mirror and amplify extremist user content rather than filter it out. XAi said that it had since removed the faulty code, overhauled the system and implemented new safeguards.
