The account was compromised in a cyberattack that posted a thread on “real-world asset tokenization.” X secured the account after it was flagged as a “high-profile compromise.”
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.”
Out of Character Post
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.
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.
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 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.” 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.
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. In 2019, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s account was briefly taken over for 20 minutes, an action that led to the platform permanently disabling its “text-to-tweet” (SMS) feature.
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.
