No handle is safe from Elon Musk: The billionaire has taken over @X, @music, and other coveted Twitter handles without paying a dime.
A few weeks ago, we reported how Elon Musk reportedly did not pay the original owner of the handle @X. Well, now it seems Chief Twit is at it again. Even as Twitter enters the final laps of its transformation of its rebranded self as X, several more handles seem to have been taken over by Musk.
In July, after Musk announced the rebranding of Twitter as X and ditched the history bluebird logo, questions were swirling around what will be the official handle henceforth. However, adding to the pandemonium, Musk went on to take over the X handle which was owned by Sana Francisco-based photographer Gene X Hwang. While the photographer’s hopes to be remunerated for the sudden usurpation, there were reports that suggested that no such attempt were made by the 52-year-old billionaire.
Cut to August, now it seems Musk’s platform has gone on to take over handles like @music, @sports, etc. The company has also been rebranding some of the accounts as @Twittermusic, @twittermovies, @twittersports, @twittertv, etc. A user identified as Jeremy Vaught said that he created the @music handle some 16 years ago, and that he has been running it ever since. However, now the handle has been taken over by Musk.
“16 years ago, I created @music and have been running it ever since. Just now, Twitter / X just ripped it away. Super pissed,” tweeted Vaught. Meanwhile, X also took over @movies and @tv handles and renamed it.
All this has been happening, and there has been no official clarification or announcement from the X team.
What’s in the domain?
In February, it came to be known that OpenAI had reportedly registered the AI.com domain which was to be redirected to ChatGPT web. Now, it seems the 52-year-old technocrat may have snatched the domain from Sam Altman’s company. Although domains being bought and sold are a routine affair, when it comes to two-letter.com domains, it’s a rarity. This is because they are expensive and all the more costly if they are commonly known abbreviations.
Interestingly, in the last two days the AI.com domain which redirected to ChatGPT, redirected to Elon Musk’s xAI, an AI company owned by him. xAI is different from X Corp and on its official website it claims to ‘work closely with X’.
“The goal of xAI is to understand the true nature of the universe. We will share more information over the next couple of weeks and months,” reads the opening lines of the homepage of xAI.com.
In February, Saw.com, a domain broker, claimed that they were responsible for transferring AI.com to OpenAI. This made it easier for ChatGPT users to logon to the web version.While it is not clear yet if Musk has officially taken over the AI.com domain.
Reportedly, Musk had invested in OpenAI some four years ago when the company was in its nascent stage. It is also known that Musk had held different roles in the company. Now that he has floated his own AI company, it is only obvious that the Tesla chief is eying to overthrow the dominance of OpenAI in the AI realm.
Source:indianexpress.com