Iran's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has a new "verified" account on X, the influential social media platform owned by Elon Musk. The account bears a blue checkmark, which indicates payment for X Premium, raising fresh concerns about whether the platform is breaching US sanctions law.
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Mojtaba Khamenei under the first Trump administration in 2019, for what it said was "representing the Supreme Leader in an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position aside from work in the office of his father." For the past three years the Tech Transparency Project has repeatedly highlighted how X is profiting from providing premium subscriptions to US sanctioned entities, many linked to terrorism, in apparent violation of US sanctions law.
The case of Mojtaba Khamenei is not an isolated failure. In February, the Tech Transparency Project 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. A report released by the Tech Transparency Project said that more than two dozen accounts belonging to Iranian officials, government agencies and state-controlled media outlets have been using X's premium services.
This arrangement poses a direct sanctions compliance problem. Under rules set by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), US firms cannot provide paid services to Iran's government or to people on the Specially Designated Nationals list. A general license allows free social media access for people in Iran. It does not allow paid services for the government or sanctioned officials. 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.
X Premium accounts provide tangible benefits beyond a blue checkmark. X Premium accounts get access to a number of perks, including blue checkmarks and the ability to write longer posts, upload longer videos, and share in advertising revenue. The longer posts and greater visibility carry particular importance for government messaging.
What troubles compliance experts is not merely that X accepted payment from sanctioned individuals, but that the company only removed verification badges after journalists inquired about specific accounts. X did not respond to a request for comment, but within hours of WIRED flagging several X accounts belonging to Iranian officials, their blue checkmarks were removed. After media outlets, including WIRED, asked about specific accounts, the platform removed blue checkmarks from several of them. Reports say four out of five accounts flagged in one inquiry lost their badges soon after questions were sent.
This reactive posture raises questions about whether X has systematic monitoring in place. There are exemptions to the sanctions against the Iranian government, and one, issued in 2022, allows for US tech companies to provide access to their platforms in Iran. The exemption means Iranian government officials can also use these platforms, but only if those services are "publicly available" and "at no cost."
X has not disclosed how it intends to address the broader compliance gap. When contacted about similar findings in 2024, the company said it had a "robust and secure approach in place for our monetization features." That claim sits uneasily alongside the systematic pattern the Tech Transparency Project has documented.
The stakes extend beyond X itself. Musk's space exploration company SpaceX, which owns X and the artificial intelligence company xAI, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mojtaba Khamenei's new account on the social network. Compliance failures in one company can create legal exposure across a corporate structure, particularly when federal contracting relationships are involved.