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.

  • n1ckn4m3@lemmy.world
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    1 month 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.

  • Myxomatosis@lemmy.world
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    1 month 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@feddit.nl
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      1 month 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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        1 month 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.

      • Myxomatosis@lemmy.world
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        1 month 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.

        • UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Some of those drugs will change your brain chemistry permanently or rewire it. They can even make you paranoid and start to believe weird conspiracies.

    • bean@lemmy.world
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      1 month 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. 🙃

  • Jeffool @lemmy.world
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    1 month 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.

  • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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    1 month ago

    This is probably the most American thing elon has ever accomplished; taking something that isn’t theirs and using it to hurl feces.

  • Dashi@lemmy.world
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    1 month 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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    1 month ago

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

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

    • cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
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      1 month 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.

    • Breezy@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

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

      • Clent@lemmy.world
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        1 month 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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          1 month 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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            1 month 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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              1 month 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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              1 month 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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                1 month 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.

    • ikidd@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Some personal physician will OD him on Special-K because he got tired of his shit.

      • dezmd@lemmy.world
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        1 month 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.

  • Jode@midwest.social
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    1 month ago

    Do Twitter usernames have value? Could this be considered a massive in kind campaign contribution?

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I would argue if the users don’t hold value, and the content is made by the uses, the company would need a re-evaluation of near zero value. Then again … Lemmy has no value to usernames. As you and I can have the same username, as we are on different instances. But that is attached to the idea of disenfranchising the value behind the instance ownership.

  • frazw@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    “Let me tell you why I claim to support trump.”

    The real reasons would never be spoken aloud.

    • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      It’d be a weird world unless X/Twitter was government run. But at some point we’re going to hit the mother of all lawsuits… email is a standard communication medium for folks and lots of people still, and have forever, used @ hotmail, yahoo or gmail addresses.

      It will be really fucking interesting the first time one of those companies seizes an address and diverts some critical notification.