Elon Musk may have burner Twitter accounts, with one posing as his son
Elon Musk reportedly had a Twitter account trasferred to him, following news he may have accidentally revealed his secondary account, @Ermnmusk.
Tech news site Platformer reported that Musk had the Twitter account @e transferred to him without the consent of the former owner.
Zoe Schiffer reported: “I’m told the person who owned the account did not want to hand it over (the account had been hacked and suspended before due to the high value handle, and the previous owner wanted to keep it).”
The account follows only three accounts: Musk, Nasa, and online magazine LAist.
NEW: Elon Musk has another alt account, @e, that he had Twitter transfer to him shortly after the takeover.
I'm told the person who owned the account did not want to hand it over (the account had been hacked and suspended before due to the high value handle, and the previous…— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) April 25, 2023
And this may not be Musk’s only burner account.
Earlier this week, a screenshot posted by Musk’s main account displayed the avatar of another account, and Twitter sleuths tracked down @Ermnmusk as the likely profile.
At first glance, it all seems innocent enough. The account has the header “Elon Test”, and most of the posts are innocuous.
However, there’s some slightly stranger stuff in @Ermnmusk’s replies. It said “Do you like Japanese girls?” to Bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor. At times, it appears to role play as Musk’s real-life son X AE A-XII Musk. Yes, that is his actual name.
“I will finally turn 3 on May 4th!” the account tweeted yesterday, and “I wish I was old enough to go to nightclubs. They sound so fun,” back in November 2022.
X AE A-XII Musk was born to Canadian singer Grimes in 2020, who was in a relationship with Musk between 2018 and 2022.
The @Ermnmusk account was created in November 2022, shortly after Musk finalised his acquisition of Twitter late the previous month.
Why does Elon Musk have a burner Twitter account?
Why would Musk have a secondary account? The practical take is it lets him test features without relying on the results from his own account. With more than 136 million followers, this is far removed from that of almost every other Twitter user.
At one point back in November, @Ermnmusk tweeted about crypto, which could have been an attempt to provoke a reaction from bot accounts. Bots love crypto.
The account won’t be of much use for that any more, though, @ErmnMusk having already acquired 43,000-plus followers at the time of writing.
Part of the reason for this account’s existence is down to Musk’s rather specific brand of humour. This is the cause of some of the serious issues with companies he owns, including Twitter and Tesla.
A Tesla shareholder group claimed on April 21 that Musk was not focused enough on the company, CNN reported. “Due to the board’s failure to restrict the CEO’s outside commitments and ensure he is focused on solving the many challenges the company faces, we have lost confidence in its members,” the group wrote in a letter to the Tesla board.
