Sesame Workshop Condemns “Abhorrent” Antisemitic & Racist Content From Elmo’s Hacked X Account
Sesame Workshop is addressing Elmo‘s hacked X account that shared “abhorrent” messages that were antisemitic and racist.
“On Sunday, Elmo’s X account was briefly hacked by an outside party, in spite of the security measures in place,” read the statement on X, the microblogging platform owned by Elon Musk and formerly known as Twitter.
“We strongly condemn the abhorrent antisemitic and racist content, and the account has since been secured,” the statement continued. “These posts in no way reflect the values of Sesame Workshop or Sesame Street, and no one at the organization was involved.”
Elmo’s X account usually shares wholesome content, asking users how they are and spreading love and kindness. However, on Sunday, a string of messages were posted shocking its more than 650,000 followers. Some of the posts included linking Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender.
After Sesame Workshop regained control of the account, the posts were promptly deleted. Earlier today, a new post from Elmo was shared expressing his gratitude following the grotesque incident.
“Thank you for being kind to Elmo and all the people in your neighborhood. Elmo loves you,” read the post.
The incident on X follows another one in which X’s chatbot, Grok, was spitting out comments that lauded Adolf Hitler. X later issued an apology and took the chatbot offline for a couple of days while it reprogrammed it.
On Monday night’s episode of The Daily Show, host Jon Stewart addressed Elmo’s hacked X account. Stewart dedicated a whole bit with “Elmo” as an alt-right propagandist.
