Elon Musk may have accidentally revealed a strange, secret ‘burner’ Twitter account

‘You’d never guess it’s me,’ Musk wrote after account was revealed

Elon Musk appears to have revealed that he has a secret, anonymous burner account on Twitter.

The chief executive had shared a screengrab of his own account, intending to use the image to demonstrate how to use Twitter’s “subscriptions” feature. That tool allows people to charge people an extra fee for access to bonus content, and Mr Musk was showing that almost 25,000 people have been subscribing to his account.

But the image included a potentially more telling detail. Alongside his normal account was a small image apparently showing a child holding a replica of SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft.

That image was showing in the part of the Twitter interface that is reserved for alternative accounts. It enables people who run more than one profile to switch between them quickly.

Mr Musk appeared to confirm in a response to “DogeDesigner”, one of his most avid fans, that he is operating a secret account. “You’d never guess it’s me!” he replied to that account, after it reported that he has an “alt” account on the site.

Users immediately attempted to find that account on the site. Searching for the image showed no results and there were no other details included in Mr Musk’s screenshot, making finding the account difficult.

But soon after it was posted, one user claimed to have found the burner account. It went by the name “Elon Test” and the username @ErmnMusk, and had that same profile image, according to the viral tweet.

That account has posted a range of unusual posts, relating to many of the topics that Mr Musk and his fans are interested in. It sent replies to accounts focused on cryptocurrency and Tesla, as well as replying to tweets from Mr Musk’s account, for instance.

In other posts, the account appeared to role-play as a child. As well as posting about not being old enough to go to nightclubs, one tweet reads “I will finally turn 3 on May 4th”, which corresponds with the birthdate of X, Mr Musk’s child with the singer Grimes.

The image on the account also appears to show X. Though there is no record of it being shared before, the child in the image appears similar to pictures of him that have been tweeted by Mr Musk in the past, and the Starship model he is holding recently opened for pre-orders on SpaceX’s website.

Other posts complained about not having enough followers, with one reading “Only one person is following me (sigh)” and another pleading “For the love of god, can someone follow me”.

Yet more posts appeared in reply to sexual content. One post replying to bitcoin advocate Michael Saylor asked whether he liked “Japanese girls” and another response to a post about FTX employee Caroline Ellison included the reply “I [heart] librarians”.

The account was created in November 2022, shortly after Mr Musk completed his purchase of Twitter. It is not clear whether the image or other account details have been changed in the time since, since that is not publicly documented on Twitter accounts.

That started a host of speculation on Twitter, with users suggesting those details confirmed the account belonged to Mr Musk and was the alt account that he appeared to have confirmed existed. Many mocked Mr Musk or expressed unease about the nature of the posts, given that they appeared to be shared in the persona of a child.

But there is nothing to link the account with Mr Musk, or to suggest that the “@ErmnMusk” is either controlled by him or is the account seemingly shown in the screenshot. While it shares the same image, that may have been added after the fact given that it was publicly available for some time before the account was discovered.

Mr Musk has not commented on that specific account, or the suggestions that he may be in control of it. He has also not given any further comment on the issue of his possible secret account more generally, beyond the initial tweet to “DogeDesigner”, despite commenting on a range of other topics on his Twitter feed.