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| - One or more users briefly gained access to change government-run accounts for a state in India and city in Mexico to different handles representing Hitler. X originally granted the special gray verification badge to the countries' government accounts, not those representing the former German dictator.
A rumor circulating online in February 2025 claimed tech billionaire Elon Musk's X provided gray verification badges — intended for government or multilateral organizations or officials — to accounts representing Adolf Hitler, the former German dictator and leader of the Nazi Party.
For example, on Feb. 22, a Reddit user posted (archived) on the r/popculture subreddit, "Elon Musk verified this account as an 'official government account.' Beyond parody." The user included an authentic screenshot of a post with Hitler's name and photos, the handle @hitlergov and a gray verification badge. The post featured a hateful statement about Black and Jewish people, as well as the hashtag, "#SWASTIKA." The account only followed one user, the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, who earlier in February posted statements including, "I love Hitler" and "I'm a Nazi."
One week earlier, on Feb. 15, another X user posted (archived) about a different Hitler account, "What the f*** is going on." The post featured two authentic screenshots from an X account also displaying a gray verification badge, Hitler's name and picture, and the handle @adolf_gov. One post from @adolf_gov visible in one of the screenshots began, "I have returned to make Germany great again."
However, Musk's X did not provide gray verification badges to accounts representing Hitler. One or more unknown users changed the handles of existing government accounts for India and Mexico to make political statements against Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, for which Musk serves as the public face of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
A user briefly gained access to the government-run account @mxjilotepec, representing the Mexican city of Jilotepec, and changed the handle to @hitlergov. Both handles shared the same user ID number of 1890066992725377024, found within the page source code of the platform. A similar incident occurred with @WRD_Bihar, the official account for the water resources department in the Indian state of Bihar, with a user briefly changing the handle to @adolf_gov. Those handles displayed the same ID number (897695570206355457). As of Feb. 25, neither @mxjilotepec nor @WRD_Bihar displayed any posts.
Government officials for Jilotepec and Bihar did not respond to a request for further information about the incidents involving the two accounts.
Weeks prior to the incidents involving the two X accounts, the online neo-Nazi community responded positively to what they viewed as Musk twice giving a "Nazi salute" to a crowd at one of Trump's Inauguration Day gatherings. Following Musk's gestures, he told the crowd, "My heart goes out to you." He later denied the claim that he intended his gestures as a "Nazi salute," posting (archived) on X, "In the end, this deception will just be another nail in the coffin of legacy media."
In May 2024, Musk reinstated the X account for Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust-denying white supremacist. Musk posted (archived) of Fuentes' reinstatement to "let him be crushed by the comments and Community Notes," adding, "It is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than grow simmering in the darkness."
Further, in November 2023, Musk posted a reply (archived) reading, "You have said the actual truth," in response to a user who created a post (archived) saying, in part, that Jewish people support "dialectical hatred against whites." Musk later posted clarifications to his reply. Vox reported of the discussion, "Elon Musk backs antisemitic claim; Tesla shares tumble."
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