X Lawsuit Exposes $278,000 Bot Scheme Behind Creator Payments

X is seeking the return of $278,000 from Preston, England-based operators Vivek Kumar Sen and Zamyang Sherpa, whom the company accuses of manipulating its Creator Revenue Sharing program through a coordinated network of bot accounts. The lawsuit was filed in London’s High Court on September 17, 2026, under claim number BL-2026-001161, and also names several unidentified co-conspirators.

The defendants allegedly extracted at least £207,384, approximately $278,000, from X’s creator fund before the operation was detected and suspended. X alleges that the network focused on Bitcoin-related content and used fake engagement to trigger automated advertising-revenue payouts.

The program was launched in July 2023 after Elon Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and rebranded it as X. It was presented as a way to distribute part of the platform’s advertising revenue to high-performing accounts, although critics argued that the model encouraged low-quality “engagement farming.”

To qualify, an account needed a paid X Premium subscription, at least 500 verified followers, and 5 million organic impressions, or views, during a rolling three-month period. Enrolled creators were paid according to the volume of ad impressions generated in replies and thread interactions, a structure critics said could reward controversial, repetitive, or automated engagement instead of original creation.

According to the High Court filing, Sen and Sherpa enrolled six primary accounts, including @Vivek4real_, @saylordocs, and @TrendingBitcoin, as well as at least three auxiliary “booster” accounts between July 2023 and 2026. The accounts allegedly cross-posted identical or nearly identical cryptocurrency content and systematically liked and reposted one another’s updates within seconds of publication.

On October 10, 2025, two accounts in the network posted the exact same phrase, “Like, if you are not selling #Bitcoin,” alongside the same technical analysis chart. The posts appeared two minutes apart.

The alleged activity also involved copying entire reply chains between accounts, creating the appearance of active public discussions about cryptocurrency trends and activating the platform’s automated ad-revenue payout algorithms.

James Burnham, general counsel for both X and Musk’s artificial intelligence venture, xAI, confirmed the filing. Burnham said the company “sued several people who abused Creator Revenue Sharing by operating a coordinated network of accounts, posting inauthentic content to manipulate engagement, and using multiple bank accounts to hide their scheme.” He added that X “will act forcefully to protect our platform and the earnings of genuine creators.”

The defendants had to connect their X profiles to Stripe, the third-party financial infrastructure platform that manages creator payouts globally. Stripe requires verified identification under standard anti-money laundering and Know Your Customer, or KYC, rules. The lawsuit alleges that the operators bypassed those controls with mismatched profile information.

In one example, a Stripe profile connected to an active account used the name “Stefan Mann,” while later investigations traced the related bank accounts and email addresses directly to Sen. The complaint also says the defendants knew their conduct violated X’s terms of service and attempted to enlarge the operation.

X’s legal team cited internal messages in which Sen allegedly tried to recruit other high-follower accounts. “Can we continue on another channel, please as you haven’t enabled encrypted chat and I don’t want us to get in trouble for something X doesn’t allow,” Sen wrote in one message, according to the filing.

X suspended all nine associated accounts on August 18, 2026, citing its Authenticity Policy, which prohibits platform manipulation, coordinated inauthentic behavior, and artificial engagement. The company retired Creator Revenue Sharing less than three weeks later, on September 7, 2026, replacing it with the “Original Content Rewards” program. The new framework denies payouts for engagement identified as “artificially generated” or unoriginal.

The lawsuit follows other legal actions by X against automated manipulation. Over the past year, the company has pursued various bribery networks and bot rings, including operations linked to banned cryptocurrency scams that hijack prominent threads.

In the UK case, X is bringing claims for deceit, unjust enrichment, and “unlawful means conspiracy.” Under English law, unlawful means conspiracy is a civil tort involving multiple parties coordinating to cause economic harm through illegal acts. X is also asking the court to establish a “constructive trust,” which would treat the siphoned $278,000 as money held in trust for X and prevent the defendants from legally shielding or transferring the funds.

X is seeking the full return of the $278,000, general damages, interest, legal fees, and an additional £75,000 for the internal costs of its investigation. As of September 21, 2026, the defendants had not filed a formal defense in the High Court.