X owner Elon Musk has once again hijacked a rare coveted username from its original user.

This time, however, the takeover wasn’t for the good of X the company, it was so Musk could promote Donald Trump for president.

On Saturday, Musk appeared at Donald Trump’s rally in Butler Pennsylvania. However, earlier that day, Musk began promoting his pro-Trump Super PAC, called America PAC, using a brand new handle @America.

“Read @America to understand why I’m supporting Trump for President,” Musk’s new bio said as of approximately 1:30pm ET on Saturday, Oct. 5.

The @America handle appeared attached to a brand new account setup just this month, in October 2024. However, this rare, one-word geographic handle had already been long registered by another X user more than 14 years prior to Musk taking the handle from them, in September 2010.

According to a person familiar with the situation, X took the handle from the user much like how Musk’s social media company took the @X handle from its original registrant last year.

  • @intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    229 months ago

    I was able to shorten the original 4,204-character article to this 140-character summary:

    X took over @America and gave the guy @America123_12 instead. Twitter terms allow this. The tag was registered in 2010, inactive since 2020.

    • HonkyTonkWoman
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      159 months ago

      You forgot the part about Elon fornicating with a tapir. Pretty critical piece of the story to exclude.

      • @intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        119 months ago

        Didn’t seem critical to the core narrative. The tapir was fully sober and in heat so I don’t really see how it relates.

        • HonkyTonkWoman
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          89 months ago

          You are, in fact, correct. My heavens. The lack of journalistic integrity these days must’ve seriously damaged my ability to isolate important news from tabloid trash. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.

          Folks, I admit fault. I’ll leave Elon & his tapir to their business.

    • @zbyte64@awful.systems
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      39 months ago

      My 🔮 says they will someday pitch investors on federating with Blue Sky, after which they will discover no one wants their content.

  • @Myxomatosis@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I’m not interested in what a drug-addled white supremacist has to say. I’m not allowed to use edibles on my days off because it can put my job at risk but this piece-of-shit uses ketamine, acid, shrooms and cocaine and is still allowed to have expensive government contracts.

    • Zement
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      599 months ago

      I don’t get how anyone can Take Acid and stay a fascist. It creates the quite opposite feelings to hate.

      • @sue_me_please@awful.systems
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        109 months ago

        I used to think this until I met an acidhead who would dose every weekend. Most racist person I’ve ever met and, if anything, the acid made him more racist.

      • @SSJMarx@lemm.ee
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        139 months ago

        I assume he microdosed it because he read that it could increase productivity.

      • @Myxomatosis@lemmy.world
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        399 months ago

        Same situation with Joe Rogan. He’s a giant pothead but gets to use in Texas which has some of the strictest regulations in the country.

    • bean
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      59 months ago

      Because they think they can control him. Possibly why he’s so hell bent on this now too. It would explain some things. But he’s still a piece of shit no matter what. 🙃

  • @Asafum@feddit.nl
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    339 months ago

    See you don’t get it, it’s totally fine for musk to take the @America tag and push Twitter for Trump. Twitter was SUPER biased before because you couldn’t say the N-word whenever you want. It’s not biased at all now because it’s completely far right which is obviously the Correct Way to Be™ so it can’t be biased.

    -dipshits

  • Jeffool
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    79 months ago

    Sure it sucks, but it can’t be a surprise anymore.

    The username @X was also taken from a user. Same with @Music, who if I recall correctly, was a fan of Musk and was even subscribing to Twitter at the time. They even continued to do what @Music was doing with music recommendations, so it was barely a rebrand. It was basically just hijacking the work someone else put into establishing their social media presence.

  • @Dashi@lemmy.world
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    29 months ago

    I’m all for hating on musk/trump. But do we know if he actually stole the handle/tag or if he paid an obscene amount of money to the original owner?

    I hate Twitter and deleted my account a long time ago but facts matter and assuming he stole the tag is just as bad as what he is doing. We may never know what actually happened but I’m curious

  • @Clent@lemmy.world
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    519 months ago

    I can’t wait until Trump loses interest in Musk.

    I hope it’s the final push over the edge Musk needs.

    • @Breezy@lemmy.world
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      129 months ago

      Could you imagine come November trump loses and musk just shots himself to Mars for forever. What a good day that’ll be.

      • Match!!
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        29 months ago

        to the one place wokeism has not corrupted … SPACE~

      • @Clent@lemmy.world
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        99 months ago

        Four words too many on that first sentence.

        At this point though, I have a sinking suspicion that Trump is going to win. I hope I’m wrong but I’m in a swing state and it feels more like 2016 than 2020 to me. America is full of ignorant people who are too prideful to realize how absolutely ignorant they are.

        • @Breezy@lemmy.world
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          49 months ago

          Naw it feels like a mix of 16 and 08. Theres so much energy around harris, but its bogged down by all the hate from trump. But im older, Obama was elected when i was in high school amd thats when i started paying attention to politics

          • @Clent@lemmy.world
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            59 months ago

            Older than me? I’ve got probably a decade on you. My first (major) political awareness involves blowjobs and dress stains. I vaguely recall Iraq Part 1 and the excitement around it being televised live.

            My abandoned Reddit account is older than some of the people I interact with on here.

            I hope you’re right. As with all the recent elections where the Democratic Party wins, it’s all down to the youth vote. Also, really hopefully this one has even more extra support from the uterus carrying people amongst us than anticipated by the polls.

            • @Kalysta@lemm.ee
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              29 months ago

              It comes down to people in 7 states. And after seeing interviews with some swing voters, they aren’t deep thinkers.

              We’re fucked and i’m currently making my escape plan.

            • @Breezy@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Do you not feel the change approach? She hasnt come out and used Obama’s exact phrasing, but it feels like shes going to bring some change that we desperately need.

              • @zbyte64@awful.systems
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                29 months ago

                Her bringing on Tim Walz keeps that hope alive for me. Like even if she somehow disappoints me, there will be Walz who can inject some “mind your own business” socialism at the national stage. I wish he would have more faith in his own speaking abilities though.

              • @Clent@lemmy.world
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                19 months ago

                I have no issues with her. And I think she will be a better leader than we’ve had in a while. Possible bette than Obama who seemed too afraid to be bold in his actions.

                But the news cycles are all about Trump and I know people who still plan to vote for him and the polls are still awfully close that it could easily swing either way.

                I feel like I am stuck in a political demographic where I am the outlier. It sounds like the view might be better from where you stand.

    • @cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
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      79 months ago

      Nah, Trump will put Musk on his cabinet, possibly Secretary of Transportation. Which is ironic that Musk has an electric car company but the GOP is all about fossil fuel. We’ve seen gas guzzling pick ups block multiple super chargers to fuck with Tesla owners.

      • @dezmd@lemmy.world
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        29 months ago

        Musk Pillow has a nice ring to it. He’s going to do a lot of harm to good tech when he really crashes out after Trump loses.

  • n1ckn4m3
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    1499 months ago

    If you’re still on Xitter at this point, you deserve all the bullshit you get. That place is a cesspool. You can’t swim in the toilet and then pretend to be mad you’re covered in shit.