Musk’s X is Flooded With Ad Spam—Stolen Credit Cards May Be Key

Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, has in the past couple of months been inundated with a wave of ads for porn sites and fake luxury goods. That might sound like a low-priority problem for X, as these ads—no matter how sketchy—could in theory bring in much-needed ad revenue.

The problem is that the flood of ad spam, as insiders refer to it, has coincided with a surge in credit card firms asking X for refunds on unauthorized transactions. That indicates that at least some of the spam ads are paid for with stolen cards, say people familiar with the situation, which means X doesn’t get to keep any money generated from the ads.