Elon Musk's X sues users for running fake accounts and pocketing $277K

Elon Musk's X sues users for running fake accounts and pocketing $277K

Mon, September 21, 2026 at 8:04 PM GMT+3 2 min read

X, the social media platform acquired by Elon Musk's xAI for $33 billion last year, has filed a lawsuit in London against two UK residents. The lawsuit alleged that the two ran a network of crypto-themed accounts to fraudulently extract approximately $277,000 from its Creator Revenue Sharing program.

X's Creator Revenue Sharing program paid eligible account holders a share of advertising revenue based on the engagement their posts generated.

The program ran from July 2023 until it was replaced by X's Original Content Rewards program on September 7 this year.

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Fake engagement, real payouts

According to the filing, Vivek Kumar Sen, Zamyang Sherpa and unidentified accomplices operated at least nine X accounts that posted identical or near-identical crypto-focused content within minutes, and in one instance, just 11 seconds apart, to artificially inflate engagement metrics such as likes, reposts and replies.

The accounts included handles like @Bitcoin_Teddy, @saylordocs, @TrendingBitcoin, @Kalshibacktest and @PolyBackTest.

X alleges the coordinated activity was designed to make the accounts appear independently popular, increasing their share of the program's advertising revenue pool.

X also claims the defendants used overlapping financial and identifying details across accounts.

The Stripe payment account linked to @Bitcoin_Teddy was registered under the name "Stefan Mann," but the associated bank account and email address both traced back to Sen, according to the lawsuit.

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$277,000 out, more demanded back

X said it paid out a total of roughly $277,000 (£207,384) to the accounts before suspending them on August 18 for what it described as "coordinated revenue-sharing fraud and platform manipulation."

The company is now seeking to recover the full amount plus at least $100,000 (£75,000) in investigation, analysis and remediation costs.

James Burnham, who handles legal matters at X and SpaceX, wrote on the platform that the company "does not tolerate fraudulent behavior" and "will act forcefully to protect our platform and the earnings of genuine creators." X published the full lawsuit on its transparency page.

The allegations have not been adjudicated by a court.

This story was originally published by TheStreet on Sep 21, 2026, where it first appeared in the LATEST NEWS section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.