File photo: Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, second son of late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attends a rally in Tehran, Iran, on May 31, 2019.
Hamid Forutan | via Reuters
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has joined X Premium on his official English-language account, despite the Elon Musk-owned company’s policy against sanctioned persons.
This comes after a blue checkmark was removed from Iran’s supreme leader’s Persian account after the profile’s verified status was highlighted by the Technical Transparency Project (TTP) in March.
Khamenei’s English-language X profile currently has about 175,000 followers, more than his Farsi-language account, and is used to spread posts about the ongoing conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran. According to the profile, the account is located in Iran and was created in March.
Khamenei’s profile has been under intense scrutiny since 2019, as he has been on the US Treasury Department’s OFAC sanctions list, which prohibits US individuals and entities from doing business with him.
Khamenei took over as Iran’s leader after his father was killed in a US airstrike on February 28, amid an escalating war between the US and Israel.
The blue checkmark with an X is reserved exclusively for paid X Premium or Premium+ subscribers, which comes with many perks, including the ability to write longer posts, upload longer videos, and share ad revenue.
According to the company’s policy, “X Premium may not be purchased by anyone who is not authorized to do business with X under U.S. and other applicable economic sanctions and trade compliance laws.” It’s unclear how that policy will be enforced.
X also often assigns free gray checkmarks to government officials, a feature previously used for accounts associated with Khamenei.
However, on February 12, TTP published a report that found the existence of X accounts in the names of Iranian government officials, government agencies, and government-run media with blue checkmarks indicating they are customers of X’s premium services.
“Company X is likely to have received income from Iranian individuals and entities because it requires a paid membership to receive premium services, which may violate U.S. economic sanctions,” the TTP report said.
Mr. Musk’s space exploration company SpaceX, which owns X and artificial intelligence company xAI, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Mojtaba Khamenei’s blue checkmark on social networks.
The U.S. Treasury Department, which has imposed sanctions against Iran, did not respond to a request for comment.
— CNBC’s Dan Mangan and Laura Kolodny contributed to this report
