Over the weekend, some sort of cybercrime cretin hacked into the X account belonging to Elmo, the friendly puppet from Sesame Street, and used it to spout a bilge of anti-semitic and racist material. “Kill all Jews,” read one post. Another mentioned Jeffrey Epstein, with the added scrawl: “ALL JEWS SHOULD DIE.” Yet another post used the N-word. The posts remained online until Tuesday, when they were taken down. Elmo followed up the vitriolic posts with a return to his usual brand of warmhearted affection: “Elmo loves you,” the puppet posted.
However, the lack of an immediate apology from the puppet’s account left some web users angry. Many X users insisted that the account should address the incident, and seemed to treat Elmo as if he were a real person instead of a fictional TV character. Many of the accounts that expressed anger at Elmo mentioned Israel or included emojis of Israeli flags.
“Still not a single word of apology from @elmo or team,” wrote one account on Monday, whose bio included an Israeli flag.
“No apologies for your poor behavior? Teaching everyone Jew hate is normal?” another account, whose profile reads “Antizionism is a hate movement,” posted.
Meanwhile, the account for Canary Mission, a controversial pro-Israel group, wrote: “Elmo’s account tweeted: “Kill all Jews.” Sesame Street blamed a “hack.” No proof. No apology. No accountability. Christina Vittas — the person behind Elmo — still has her job. We demand a real investigation. Or fire the person responsible.”
Another group, the Combat Antisemitism Movement, wrote: “Even though the tweets were deleted, they were seen by thousands. No apology. No explanation yet. We call on the Sesame Street team to urgently investigate this breach, review account security and staff access, and issue a public apology. This wasn’t a joke. It was a call for murder.”
Yet another account, whose bio includes the Israeli flag, wrote: “I investigated the source of the @elmo incident — since Sesame Street has not apologized. I found it. This is why you shouldn’t allow your kids to listen to Ms. Rachel.” The account then shared images of Rachel Griffin-Accurso, a children’s entertainer who has appeared alongside Elmo in several episodes of Sesame Street.
Griffin-Accurso has been targeted by Jewish advocacy groups over her rhetoric in support of Gazan children. In April, the advocacy group StopAntisemitism labeled Griffin-Accurso its “Antisemite of the Week,” apparently for having the temerity to repeatedly suggest that children shouldn’t starve to death or have their limbs blown off.
On Tuesday, Elmo’s account finally issued an apology: “On Sunday, Elmo’s X account was briefly hacked by an outside party, in spite of the security measures in place,” a statement shared online reads. “We strongly condemn the abhorrent antisemitic and racist content, and the account has since been secured. These posts in no way reflect the values of Sesame Workshop or Sesame Street, and no one at the organization was involved.”
To some web users, however, the apology was still not enough. Several accounts bemoaned that it had taken the account too long to say anything about the incident. “This took TWO full days to write?” one account asked.
While a certain amount of outrage is clearly understandable, the notion that Elmo, himself, or the people who ran his account were responsible for some sort of hateful screed on X, seems dubious at best. That said, it’s unclear why it took the account a while to issue a statement. Gizmodo reached out to the Sesame Workshop for more information.
To be sure, there were also quite a few web users who responded to the whole debacle with bemusement and humor instead of outrage. Many joked that Kanye West, who recently released a single called “Heil Hitler” and has referred to himself as a “Nazi,” had hijacked Elmo’s account.
X (or Twitter, as it was previously known) has never been a platform that is particularly well known for account security. Prior to Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform, high-level accounts were hacked quite often—including those belonging to Barack Obama, Jeff Bezos, Kim Kardashian, and Joe Biden. After Musk’s acquisition in 2022, the site has remained a place where account hijackings are common.
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