Airbnb cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky appears to have been the target of a cyberattack, a source with knowledge of the situation tells Fortune. On Monday, Chesky’s X account shared a multi-post thread setting out a bullish view on “real-world asset tokenization,” a term from the crypto world that describes converting traditional assets like stocks into digital tokens.
“I’ve been quietly keeping an eye on real-world asset tokenization for a while now,” the account wrote in the now-deleted series of tweets. “Most of it is noise. But underneath the noise, something real is happening.”
Chesky is an active user of X, where he routinely shares product updates, earnings commentary, and lessons from building Airbnb with his more than 1.2 million followers. He’s even used the platform to crowdsource suggestions for business improvements, such as lowering cleaning fees and, ironically, crypto payments, which earned praise from X owner Elon Musk. “This kind of interaction with users is awesome,” Musk wrote in response to the 2023 call for ideas, urging other companies to take note. Commentary from Chesky on crypto is out of character for his accounts.
This week, though, Chesky’s replies were filled with accusations of “AI slop,” a term that describes low-quality content produced by artificial intelligence.
Users pointed out aspects of the Chesky “tokenization” post that suggested it had been cooked up by AI. “One thing that really makes AI writing distinct is the lack [of] commas,” Bloomberg’s Joseph Weisenthal wrote.
Communications strategist and Rostra founder Lulu Cheng Meservey, meanwhile, warned that “CEOs damage trust when they post unfiltered claudeslop.”
When Fortune analyzed Chesky’s thread through AI-detection tool Pangram, the system flagged it as 100% AI-generated. The posts have since been deleted. Airbnb declined to provide a public comment.
The thread appeared as a reply to a user referencing Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev’s recent interview with CNBC, in which he discussed the growing market for tokenized real-world assets.
The hacked posts were flagged to X and escalated to platform security teams as a “high-profile compromise,” according to correspondence between Airbnb and X employees reviewed by Fortune. X secured the account on Tuesday evening, and Chesky was then able to regain access to his account.
The rise of AI slop
Chesky has previously praised the use of artificial intelligence, telling CNBC in February that the tech “is the best thing that ever happened to Airbnb.” The serial founder is also preparing to launch a new AI lab focused on building new models, according to Bloomberg.
But the surge of low-quality AI-generated content is becoming a bigger headache for both business leaders and creatives, and the volume of mediocre images, videos, and text has grown so overwhelming that Merriam-Webster named “slop” its 2025 word of the year. A new analysis by AI detection platform Pangram found that roughly one in four long-form social media posts are now AI-generated. Nearly half of X’s longer “Articles” contain AI-written material.
Leaders across industries are concerned. Substack CEO Chris Best warned in September that AI could clog already crowded feeds with low-quality content and strain an attention economy he referred to as a “scarce resource.” YouTube CEO Neal Mohan dedicated a section of his annual letter to “managing AI slop,” declaring it a top priority for 2026. Oscar-winning director Christoper Nolan told The Telegraph this week that Gen Zers are “utterly rejecting” AI slop with reactions that are “immediate and harsh.”
“They see it for what it is very quickly,” The Odyssey director said. “It’s much easier for them to identify it, because it grew out of an online world they know really well.”
A recent report from social media management platform Sprout Social found that 56% of respondents say they encounter “AI slop” on social media often or very often, and 83% say they see it at least sometimes. Gen Z is more likely to rebuff the content, too. Half of respondents said they have unfollowed, muted, or blocked accounts if the content felt like AI slop.
Fortune 500 CEO security
Chesky is not the first Fortune 500 CEO to have a social media account compromised.
In 2016, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest accounts were briefly compromised by a group called OurMine Team.
“Hey @finkd (Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter handle) we got access to your Twitter & Instagram & Pinterest, we are just testing your security, please dm (direct message) us,” the now-deleted post read.
In 2019, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s account was briefly taken over for 20 minutes, an action that led to the platform to permanently disable its “text-to-tweet” (SMS) feature.
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