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 c
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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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.
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.
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