Japanese Twitter user has their username “stolen” by Elon Musk’s new AI business 

A tweet by a Japanese user claiming that their Twitter account username has been changed without their knowledge or permission has been gaining the attention of users. Their original username is now being used by Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s new AI-related startup company. 

Twitter user @xai_ had previously held the three-character account username “xia” but it seems that the Twitter administration had recently changed it to include an underscore at the end, taking away their original username from them without prior notice. The user provided old screenshots as proof of their previous username. 

The user’s original username now belongs to the official Twitter profile of xAI, a new AI company founded by Twitter’s CEO Elon Musk on July 12 this year. 

Users frowned upon the act, referring to it as theft, especially as nothing was communicated to the holder of the username before the change was made. Many even suggested that the user should file a lawsuit and claim damages, but in this case a lawsuit would likely not be valid, as Twitter’s Terms of Use do explicitly state that Twitter reserves the right to reclaim usernames without liability to users. 

As there is nothing legally “wrong” about the act, it seems the user has nothing to do but accept the their fate. Their username coinciding with the name of Elon Musk’s new company was an unlucky circumstance. To make matters worse, it seems that before @xia had their username changed, there had already been a user called @xia_ , and that account has now been renamed to @xia_1. 

On a side note, there had been an even more astonishing case similar to one this in past, when an ordinary Japanese user had their username taken by the The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States (yes, the CIA) back in 2014. The user had been holding the three-character username “cia” but had it taken away from them at the same time the CIA opened their official Twitter account, under the same username. The user similarly received no notice and could only guess at what had happened. 

It’s likely that users, especially older users with short usernames, having their usernames taken by Twitter is more of a regular occurrence than one would think, and although it’s technically Twitter’s right to do so, it sure does feel unfair (and creepy in a way).