The X account belonging to Sesame Street character Elmo was hacked on Sunday, resulting in a series of antisemitic posts that included violent threats against Jewish people.
The six now-deleted posts called on the muppet’s followers to “kill all Jews” and declared that Donald Trump is the “puppet” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because “he is in the Epstein files.”
“Elmo says all Jews should die,” one of the posts read. “Jews control the world and need to be exterminated.” Another post called on Trump to “release the files” and called him a “child fucker.”
A spokeswoman for Sesame Workshop confirmed that the account was hacked. “Elmo’s X account was compromised today by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts,” she said in a statement to press. “We are working to restore full control of the account.”
By Monday morning, the hacked posts had been deleted from Elmo’s X account, which has more than 647,000 followers. No new posts have been added to the account since. Elmo is known for sharing messages of love and kindness on his social media, often in a way that encourages fans to be part of the conversation.
In May, Netflix announced that Sesame Street would join the streaming service following the expiration of its contract with Warner Bros. Discovery, which began in 2016 when new episodes went into production at HBO after the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS, could no longer afford the expenses required to keep the series afloat. At HBO, new Sesame Street episodes would premiere nine months before they would air on PBS. Netflix plans to close the gap with its same-day release schedule beginning with Season 56.
The uncertain fate of the beloved children’s series reached a depressing turning point before the Netflix announcement when an unofficial LinkedIn post claimed that Elmo had lost his job. “Hi LinkedIn, unfortunately Elmo was recently laid off because of the federal budget cuts,” the post read. “Elmo worked at Sesame Street for 45 years. Elmo is sad. Elmo loved his time at Sesame Street.”
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