Mojtaba Khamenei; the son of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; is seen in Tehran; Iran; on December 14; 2016.
Reza B | Afp | Getty Images
Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has a new “verified” account on X, the influential social media platform owned by Elon Musk.
Khamenei, whose X handle is @Rahbarenghelab_, went on a tweetstorm Thursday about the war against Iran by the U.S. and Israel, and the Islamic Republic’s response to it.
“Dear fighter brothers! The desire of the masses of the people is the continuation of effective and regret-inducing defense. Furthermore, the leverage of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must certainly continue to be used,” Khamenei wrote in one post to his more than 44,000 followers on X. All of the posts have been translated by X from Persian.
“I assure everyone that we will not forgo vengeance for the blood of your martyrs,” he wrote in another post.
In addition to talking about the Strait of Hormuz, Khamenei urged Iran’s neighbors in the Middle East to “clarify their stance” and for those that host U.S. military bases to shut them down.
Khamenei was selected as Iran’s supreme leader earlier this week to replace his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a strike on the first day of the war on Feb. 28.
Musk’s space exploration company SpaceX, which owns X and the artificial intelligence company xAI after a merger in February, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mojtaba Khamenei’s new account on the social network. The account has a blue check mark reserved for “premium” users.”
Wired magazine published an article Feb. 12 before the war started with the headline “Elon Musk’s X Appears to Be Violating US Sanctions by Selling Premium Accounts to Iranian Leaders.”
The article cited a report by the Tech Transparency Project that said “TTP identified more than two dozen X accounts allegedly run by Iranian government officials, state agencies, and state-run news outlets, which display a blue check mark, indicating they have access to X’s premium service.”
The article noted that “an X Premium subscription, which is the only way to receive a blue check mark, costs $8 a month, while a Premium+ subscription, which removes ads and boosts reach even further, costs $40 a month.”
Hours after the article was published, Wire reported, the blue check marks for several Iranian officials’ accounts that the magazine had flagged to X were removed.
Wired’s article noted Musk personally had echoed President Donald Trump in “slamming Iranian government officials and supporting the thousands of protesters railing against the regime.”
— CNBC’s Matt Peterson contributed to this article
