Largest social media breach ever? Report alleges data from 200 million X users leaked on a hacking forum.

X could be facing a devastating data breach after a hacker supposedly leaked more than 200 million user details through a popular hacking forum. Safetydetective.com uncovered the incident through identifying a post on BreachForums from user ThinkingOne. A 34GB file available for download contained 201,186,753 X account entries which might represent the largest social media data leak in history.

The hacker ThinkingOne possessed two valid data sets that they made public because X failed to respond to their requests. Safetydetective.com confirmed the data authenticity through a comparison of the posted entries against actual X account IDs. Users can find multiple pieces of personal data in the file including screen names and full names as well as user IDs and emails and locations and follower counts and profile details and time zones and profile pictures.

The publication Forbes reported ThinkingOne explaining they act as a “data enthusiast” instead of a hacker while maintaining legal boundaries. According to them the user base affected by this breach would make it the biggest social media exposure in history while they hinted at possessing additional data such as email addresses and phone numbers and passwords. ThinkingOne reported that the data collection occurred in January 2022 then integrated the data with another leak during January 2025.

The extent of data exposed through this leak reaches massive proportions. The massive user base of X would face exposure if this data leak proves authentic. The massive 34GB CSV file size exceeds 200 million entries thus demonstrating the extensive nature of the breach according to Safetydetective.com. The release of the data dump by ThinkingOne on BreachForums as a hacker gathering place heightens the danger that cybercriminals could use it for phishing attacks and identity theft.

The $33 billion X acquisition by xAI occurred just before the revelation of this massive data leak. The deal agreement between xAI and Elon Musk included plans to harness X's extensive user data for developing Grok into a competitor of OpenAI's ChatGPT-4o. The security breach now threatens to disrupt the planned data usage strategy which depends on the vast user data collection. The situation remains unclear since X and xAI have not released any official statements. The potential future of 200 million X users remains uncertain.