Elon Musk’s X is stealing more Twitter usernames

Last month, when Twitter rebranded as X, it also swiped the @x Twitter handle away from San Francisco photographer Gene X Hwang, who had used it since 2007. Although Hwang had hoped the company might offer him compensation for the handle, he was instead offered a choice of another inactive username—as well as company merch and a visit to its headquarters. “They just took it essentially—kinda what I thought might happen,” Hwang told The Telegraph. “They did send an email saying it is the property of ‘X’ essentially.”

And now, some other users have seen their accounts ripped away by X, as the company appears to be using them to replace some of the accounts associated with its former branding, including @twittermusic, @twittersports, @twittermovies, and @twittertv. 

When you sign up for a social media platform, your username feels like it belongs to you. But some users are finding out the hard way that that’s not the case. Until recently, Jeremy Vaught of Ohio ran the Twitter account @music. This week, he took to his personal Twitter account to reveal that the account had been taken from him by X. 

“16 years ago, I created @music and have been running it ever since. Just now, Twitter / X just ripped it away,” he tweeted (or rather posted: X also removed the “tweet” button). Vaught also shared a message from the social media company letting him know that it would be changing his handle and reclaiming the one he had been using. It moved his account to @musicfan—and also offered a choice of three other handles: @musiclover, @musicmusic, and @music123—which don’t have quite the same ring.

Other accounts appear to have been reclaimed as well. On Hacker News, a user claiming to have the @sports handle on Twitter reported having received a similar message from the company. “I’ve been a user for 16 years since their first day of public signups. I login every day and use twitter for hours every day,” said the poster, who noted their account was moved to @sportz. (They were also offered @allsports, @sportsfan, or @sportslife as an alternative.)

X also appears to have taken over the @tv and @movies handles. (After the company renamed @Twitterspaces to @Xspaces, many had joked that “Xmovies” might have a different connotation.) X did not respond to Fast Company’s request for comment.

Vaught, who used to run @music and calls himself a software entrepreneur, tells Fast Company that even though he’s upset that his username has been reclaimed, he was aware it didn’t actually belong to him. “Back when Twitter started, there was what felt like a new social media every single week. And I was signing up for all of them, and paying somewhat attention to the terms of service,” he says. “They all had paragraphs in there about that. We don’t own that domain, that is theirs, and we’re borrowing it. They can always take it away.”