Sesame Street’s beloved muppet Elmo, known to go viral online for working through grief with celebs or just gently checking in with everyone, went viral yet again on Sunday — but this time, because he was hacked. And that hack led to some very not-Elmo posts.
On Sunday morning, Elmo’s X account began posting links to cryptocurrency scams, before things escalated. There appeared to be six rogue posts in total, largely targeting Jews and Donald Trump. Multiple posts called for violence against Jewish people, and also referred to the reported client list of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
One post referred to the president as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “puppet” because Trump “is in the Epstein files,” while another called him a “child f–ker” and demanded the release of Epstein’s client list.
The account was quickly restored to its proper owners, and the violent posts since deleted.
“Elmo’s X account was briefly compromised yesterday by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts,” a spokesperson for Sesame Workshop said. “The account has since been secured.”
Following the posts, other users online expressed outrage — not at the posts themselves, but rather at whoever took over the muppet’s account. Even comedian and former “Daily Show” correspondent Roy Wood Jr. was upset.
“They hacked Elmo on a Sunday morning y’all know that violate the truce,” he wrote, quoting a post that argued Elmo is a character long agreed upon to be “off limits.”
Indeed, Elmo has long been protected by those around him, including the hosts of “The Today Show.” When “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Larry David got unnecessarily physical with the muppet on air, Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb immediately demanded he apologize to Elmo, and David listened.
“Hacking Elmo’s page instead of doing something useful like shutting down Grok is why I be fed up,” another user wrote on Sunday following the hack.
Don’t mess with Elmo.
