CNN
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A journalist said Sunday that her X account was suspended and links to one of her recent articles blocked on the platform after she published an article debunking online theories that an Elon fan account Musk was actually the billionaire himself.
Journalist Jacqueline Sweet wrote an article for the British magazine The Spectatorexplaining how and why an X account belonging to a man who apparently lives in Fiji isn’t actually Musk.
The man, Adrian Dittmann, who goes by the same name on X, has regularly posted positive messages about Musk and his exploits. He also bears an uncanny resemblance to Musk, having engaged the tech mogul several times in various “Spaces” conversations. Both marveled at the similarity in their voices, with Dittmann at one point telling Musk that he grew up everywhere and lived in Oceania, but didn’t want to reveal more information for fear that people don’t attack him.
In recent days, various media outlets have questioned whether Musk had secretly posed as X as his alternate identity. But Sweet, along with a Swiss hacker/developer known as Maia Arson Crimew and journalist Ryan Fae, investigated who was really behind Dittmann’s accounts, determining that it was in fact a man named Adrian Dittmann who appears to live in Fiji.
After Sweet posted a link to his story on X reporting that Musk was not Dittmann, the billionaire owner of It’s time for the world to know.
Following the interaction, Sweet said his account was suspended. The Swiss hacker and Fae said the same thing. And since Monday afternoon, links to the Spectator article as well as to the blog of the Swiss hacker and Fae could not be published on X nor sent via the platform’s direct message function.
The reasons given for such a blockage suggest technical problems.
“Something went wrong, but don’t worry, let’s try again,” a review on X says when users try to post the link to The Spectator.
When sent via direct message, X instead says: “This request appears to be automated. To protect our users from spam and other malicious activities, we cannot perform this action at this time. Please try again later.
Soft wrote on Sunday on rival social platform Bluesky, to which his post that Musk was replying to had been deleted and his account suspended for 30 days. In a screenshot of a message Sweet said she received from X, the platform said she was suspended for violating X’s rules regarding “posting private information.”
“It is against our policies to share someone’s private information online without their permission, sometimes called ‘doxing,’ is a violation of privacy and can pose serious risks to the safety and security of those involved “, the note says.
Sweet denied doxxing Dittmann.
“I think Elon is mad I ruined his stupid game of laughing at his critics who believe Adrian Dittmann is his alt, and took his toys and went home,” Sweet wrote on Bluesky.
Matt McDonald, US editor-in-chief of the Spectator, wrote in an article Monday that the story brought together “extensive public information” in order to “challenge and debunk a widely circulated conspiracy theory.” McDonald noted that the article did not contain any private information of Dittman such as a phone number or email, nor any photos that were not already visible online.
“It’s not so much about who Adrian Dittmann is as it is about who he is not: presenting the argument that Dittmann is not, in fact, secretly the richest man in the world is clearly in the public interest and has news value, especially considering the Musk affair. a recently developed interest in government and international affairs,” McDonald wrote.
“It cannot be considered ‘unmasking’ to suggest that a certain Adrian Dittmann uses an X account with the name ‘Adrian Dittmann,'” he continued.
X did not return a request for comment.
Dittmann, for his part, posted on X stating that he was not Elon Musk.
