Elon Musk's X might have a mole problem: “How could someone enumerate all Twitter user IDs, unless they were an employee?"

X (formerly Twitter)
Insider involvement is suspected in a breach at Elon Musk's X. (Image credit: Daniel Rubino)

Last week, xAI acquired X for $33 billion. Elon Musk was seemingly stoked, indicating "xAI and X's futures are intertwined." The acquisition shows great potential for Grok as xAI can leverage X's vast database to train Grok, potentially giving OpenAI's new ChatGPT-4o image generator tool a run for its money.

While this might be in the pipeline, X was recently hit by a massive data leak featuring 2.8 billion Twitter IDs, potentially impacting over 200 million users (via Safety Detectives).

Was X's massive data breach an inside job?

While speaking to Forbes via email, ThinkingOne indicated that they didn't see themselves as a hacker, but a data enthusiast attempting to do everything "legal."

The real story (to me, at least) is that 2.8 billion records were exfiltrated from Twitter/X. This is by far the largest social media breach ever, in terms of number of users, and there is at least a possibility that the person responsible for the breach has other data including emails, phone numbers, and passwords.

ThinkingOne

It's worth noting that the data released to the public is a combination of the 2023 and 2025 leaks compressed into a 34 GB CSV file. While the data features over 201 million entries, it only includes data belonging to users who were impacted by both incidents.

ThinkingOne confirmed to Forbes:

“The dataset leaked in January, 2025 included over 2.8 billion unique Twitter IDs and screennames. I checked a representative sample of 100 and 92 had the correct user ID and screenname."

The data enthusiast expressed concern over the massive data breach that impacted millions of users. “How could someone enumerate all Twitter user IDs, unless they were an employee or this was a very serious hacking job?” ThinkingOne added.

We'll keep tabs on this story as it unfolds and keep you posted on any new developments as they unfold.

Kevin Okemwa
Contributor

Kevin Okemwa is a seasoned tech journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya with lots of experience covering the latest trends and developments in the industry at Windows Central. With a passion for innovation and a keen eye for detail, he has written for leading publications such as OnMSFT, MakeUseOf, and Windows Report, providing insightful analysis and breaking news on everything revolving around the Microsoft ecosystem. While AFK and not busy following the ever-emerging trends in tech, you can find him exploring the world or listening to music.

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