Currently there is no definitive way to prove that the account @AdrianDittmann on X, formerly Twitterfrom the website owner, Elon Muskis controlled. But since 2023, many users have been convinced that the billionaire is posing as this now-prominent influencer. And sings his own praises under a pseudonym. The conspiracy theories have only increased in recent weeks.
Adrian Dittmann has been active on the site since 2021 and is in many ways indistinguishable from other Musk followers on X. On Musk’s 53rd birthday last summer, he released a series of videos about the “greatest successes“ from the technology CEO. He complainedas Musk from Time not on the list of the 100 most influential people in the field AI was set. And it supports every market launch SpaceX as well as the dubious promise of “Full self-driving“-Technology from Tesla.
Accent, speaking rhythm and technical vocabulary
However, in August 2023, Dittmann was promoted from easy responder to Musk’s online circle of friends when the two chatted during an X Spaces event. Audience members, including Musk himself, were incredibly amused by the similarity of their voices. Right down to accent, speaking rhythm and technical vocabulary. Dittmann swore he wasn’t doing an impersonation or using his natural speaking voice AI manipulated. “That’s the best part,” he said. “That’s how I sound unironic, all the time.”
From that point on, many A hype man invented by himself, not unlike “John Barron“. A PR figure who Donald Trump famously invented to promote himself in his New York real estate career. All of this was circumstantial evidence, from Dittmanns alleged slip of the tonguewhen he said “I” even though he meant Musk. Right down to Dittmann’s flattering praise of a picture of Musk with his son X Æ A-Xii that was shared on X a year ago. “You’re a great dad, Elon,” wrote Dittmann. “Your children are lucky to have you.”
“Lost love is a pain that cannot be compared to anything”
And last March the musician announced Grimes – Musk’s on-and-off partner and mother of three of his children, with whom he is currently in a custody battle – on Instagram announced that she is dating DJ Matteo Milleri, better known as Anyma. Shortly thereafter posted Dittmann on X: “Lost love is a pain that cannot be compared with anything.”
Again, none of this is remotely conclusive. And it’s important to note that Dittmann’s influence has grown with the accusations that he is Musk. And brings him an audience of about 200,000 and tens of thousands of listeners for a daily Spaces talk he calls “The Conversation.” Both him and Musk continue to denythat they are the same person, albeit often bashful or through trollish memes that invite further speculation.
Sockpuppet accounts
It would make perfect sense if Dittmann were to design his digital persona to support the Brenner theory – and thus attract some of the outsized attention Musk enjoys – while Musk (along with Dittmann’s flattering commentary) likes it causes further confusion. on the other hand gave Musk in one statement last year admitted that he used multiple sockpuppet accounts. Below is a profile in which he wrote from the perspective of his young son X Æ A-Xii.
But while some believe that Dittmann is Musk playing amateurish mind games on his platform, the hard facts tell a slightly different story. Misinformation researcher E. Rosalie Li wrote in a recent analysis for the Information Epidemiology Lab Identified several factors that could suggest that Dittmann not Musk is. Dittmann posts via the Android app. While Musk never did this. Dittmann’s posting volume has remained consistent over time. While Musk’s has steadily increased since acquiring the site.
Furthermore, their activities do not coincide during a 24-hour cycle. Musk’s activity, Li said, “never quite drops to zero,” which is due to his likely irregular sleep cycle. In fact, he is very active at a time of day when Dittmann is more likely to be quiet and probably sleeping or otherwise occupied. (The opposite of this would undoubtedly mean that Musk can’t appear as Dittmann if he’s too busy posting as himself.)
Artificial intelligence and voice clones
“If this were a different case, given the account details, I would say there are two people involved,” Li concludes. “However, given the number of potential variables and Musk’s extreme outlier position, I remain undecided and open to new information. I’d be more surprised if it turned out to be Musk, considering how much time that was [Adrian Dittmann]account spends in Twitter Spaces. But these are just my guesses about how busy the CEO of several companies might be.”
Meanwhile, Hany Farid, a professor of computer science at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in digital forensics, introduced artificial intelligence and voice clones wrote a biometric comparison of audio clips from Musk and Dittmann. And divided the results his LinkedIn profile with. He found that their votes had greater similarity than the average similarity of two different voices in a data set of 500 votes. And he wrote that while it is “difficult to draw strong conclusions for a larger population,” only about 0.5 percent of people “have a vocal doppelganger so similar to Musk and Dittmann.”
That is, he continued, “these two voices are unusually similar, and while it is unlikely that they are different people, it is not impossible.” Of course, this leaves open the question of voice modulation by AI technology or other means .
“This guy is so fucking stupid.”
Despite Dittmann’s quiet protests that he is not Musk, he has remained ideologically loyal to his idol. As tensions rise during the transition of the president-elect Donald Trump return to the White House. As Musk and his allies in Silicon Valley, in November Hundreds of millions Donating dollars to elect Trump said tech companies would need to hire skilled foreign workers through the H-1B visa system, this sparked one Turmoil among the MAGA base fueled by Trump’s relentless demonization of all immigrants.
Dittmann was among those who joined Musk’s position and fought against the hardliners on the issue at Spaces events. Including the white supremacist Nick Fuentes and the Islamophobic conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. In one of these calls right-wing extremist troll Charles Johnson Dittmann directly accused of being Musk. “Do you know how retarded you will sound when one day it comes to light who I am?” Dittmann asked during the exchange. Whereupon Johnson said he knew he was talking to Musk. “This guy is so fucking stupid,” Dittmann replied.
She wrote “HIPPA” instead of “HIPAA
More recently, a series of screenshots emerged from a thread 4Chan Part of the legend. On Wednesday, a person tried to… claimed Dittmann to be, and used a “tripcode”. A string intended to identify a specific user (the pseudonym “Q”, whose contributions are the basis of the QAnonmovement, did the same thing), advocating for H-1B visas in the forum while defending Musk and X’s policies.
In the thread This person made some embarrassing mistakes (he wrote “HIPPA” instead of “HIPAA” for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and claims (including that “Elon is a dad who has a lot of sex”). This person also shared one Screenshot the X interface, which appeared to show that she had administrative rights on the site. Which led to another round of viral accusations that Musk had outed himself as @AdrianDittmann. The quick deletion of these posts seemed to be another indication that someone was covering their tracks.
Musk is “just a rich guy”
A source at X shared The Verge However, later with that screenshot almost certainly a fake was because the employee account dashboards are not configured that way. In this case, it could be another diversionary tactic designed to keep the Musk/Dittmann saga going, perhaps to Dittmann’s advantage. He has praised this in the past Creator Revenue Share Program of X for users like himself, where payouts are determined by the engagement of other premium accounts. And Li’s research shows that his account activity increases whenever he is “unmasked” as Musk.
He loaded on Friday YouTuber and Twitch-Star ConnorEatsPants Dittmann on his channel, where the two of them Fortnite played. The streamer Dittmann peppered him with a series of questions to Musk, referring to Grimes and the New Year’s Day bombing in Las Vegas, where the suspect Tesla Cybertruck blew up. He also asked how Musk finds the time to tweet so much (Dittmann’s answer: “autism“) and argued with Dittmann about whether The Matrix is a “trans allegory” (Musk has a history of Transphobia).
He also annoyed Dittmann by asking him to “name three women” – Dittmann refused – and claimed that Musk was “just a rich guy” who could gamble for hours because other people ran his companies for him. The awkward interview convinced many viewers that ConnorEatsPants was chatting with Musk himself. “THIS IS SO OBVIOUS HE LMFAOOO,” one read in a reply to X.
His alter ego on Spaces
But until Musk and Dittmann appear together on camera or at a live event, we probably won’t have any real clarity about what’s going on here. And while Musk’s haters relish the idea of him pretending to be an embarrassing superfan to validate himself and boost his self-esteem, it’s still unbelievable to believe that a man who is already so prolific and popular under his own name is omnipresent on social media, has the extra bandwidth to speak as his alter ego on Spaces for hours every night.
When Dittmann steps into the spotlight, there’s a good chance we’ll learn that he was the most anticipated operator of all. Someone who wanted to ingratiate himself with the richest man in the world.