Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has acquired an English-language X Premium account , despite the Elon Musk-owned company's policy on sanctioned individuals.
The new account was created after the blue tick was removed when its owner posted at the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) on March.
Khamenei's English-language profile on X currently has more followers than his Farsi-language account , with about 175.000, and is used to spread news about the ongoing US-Israeli conflict and Iran. According to the profile, he is based in Iran and the account was created in March.
Khamenei's profiles on X have attracted interest due to the leader being on the US Treasury Department's OFAC sanctions list since 2019, which prohibits US persons and entities from doing business with him.
Khamenei assumed leadership of Iran after the death of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a US raid on February 28, amid escalating war with the United States and Israel.
The blue check marks on X are reserved exclusively for paid X Premium or Premium+ subscribers and come with a number of perks, such as the ability to write longer posts, post longer videos, and participate in ad revenue.
According to the company's policies, "You are not permitted to purchase X Premium if you are a person with whom X is prohibited from doing business under U.S. and any other applicable economic sanctions and trade compliance laws."
Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.
