Merch And A Visit To X's HQ: Here's What Elon Musk's Twitter Offered The Owner Of @X Handle

Ever since Elon Musk rebranded Twitter as X and took over the account @X, rumors have been rife if the owner of the account was compensated or not. We now have the answer, and it seems that Gene X Hwang didn't really get anything in return for giving up @X.

What Happened: Gene X Hwang, the original owner of the account @X, was offered a selection of X merchandise and a visit to the X headquarter, reported The Telegraph.

See Also: Elon Musk Says TweetDeck Will Come With ‘Psy Op Plugins’ And Rebranded As ‘XPro’

Following the rebranding of Twitter as X, the Musk-owned company took over the account @X, migrating from the previous @Twitter handle. The only problem was that a user, Hwang, had already created the @X handle back in February 2007.

It is worth noting that Twitter stopped allowing users to create single-letter accounts soon after, so Hwang got lucky. Single-letter accounts are also valuable for this reason – they are rare as it is, and Twitter (or X) preventing their creation adds to the lure.

Dashed Hopes: Netizens on Twitter had high expectations from Musk and X, with some of them suggesting that Hwang could receive a Tesla car or some monetary compensation for giving up his ownership of @X.

However, it all amounted to nothing, with Musk taking over @X without paying anything at all.

According to the official email sent by X to Hwang, as seen by Insider, the company gave Hwang an option to migrate to a new account, including his followers, which stood at over 53,000.

"Some amount of money or compensation doesn’t seem like it would be too big a deal for them," Hwang said.

Image Credits – Shutterstock

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