Iran Supreme Leader got a new X premium account, despite sanctions

The blue checkmark linked to the subscription was removed after CNBC reached out to the parent company of X about the account.

That follows a similar removal of a blue checkmark from the Iranian Supreme Leader’s Farsi-language account earlier this month. The profiles’ verified statuses had first been highlighted by the Tech Transparency Project (TTP). 

Khamenei’s English-language X profile currently has more followers than his Farsi-language account, with over 175,000, and has been used to disseminate posts regarding the ongoing U.S.-Israel and Iran conflict. According to the profile, the account is located in Iran and was created in March.

Khamenei X’s profiles have attracted scrutiny due to the leader falling under the U.S. Treasury’s OFAC sanctions list since 2019, prohibiting U.S. persons and entities from dealing with him.

Khamenei assumed leadership of Iran after his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a U.S. strike on Feb. 28, amid the escalating war with the United States and Israel.

Blue checkmarks 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, upload longer videos and share in ad revenue.

According to the company’s policies, “You may not purchase X Premium if you are a person with whom X is not permitted to have dealings under US and any other applicable economic sanctions and trade compliance law.” It is unclear how that policy is enforced. 

X also often assigns free grey checkmarks to government officials, a feature previously used for accounts linked to the elder Khamenei. 

However, on Feb 12, TTP released a report that found there were X accounts in the names of Iranian officials, agencies and government-run media outlets that had a blue check mark, which indicates they were customers of X’s premium service.

“Because X requires a paid subscription to get premium service, it has likely received revenue from these Iranian individuals and groups — a potential violation of U.S. economic sanctions,” TTP’s report said. 

Musk’s space exploration company SpaceX, which owns X and the artificial intelligence company xAI, did not respond to a request for comment on Mojtaba Khamenei’s blue checkmark on the social network. 

The U.S. Treasury, which enforces sanctions against Iran, said in a statement to CNBC that “[w]hile Treasury does not comment on specific allegations, we take allegations of sanctionable conduct extremely seriously.”

— CNBC’s Dan Mangan and Lora Kolodny contributed to this report