Amidst a global Microsoft outage on Friday that brought crucial infrastructure, including airlines and banking, to a near standstill, a social media post went viral. A person named Vincent Flibustier, posing as a CrowdStrike employee, took to X (formerly Twitter) and claimed responsibility for the chaos. Hours later, in another post, Flibustier said he was fired following the outage.
The prank began with Flibustier sharing a selfie outside the CrowdStrike office, accompanied by the caption: “First day at Crowdstrike, pushed a little update and taking the afternoon off ✌️.” The post quickly went viral, amassing over 398K likes, 39.7M views, and 2.7K comments. A few hours later, the prank escalated with a tweet announcing his dismissal, stating, “Fired. Totally unfair.”
Flibustier even appealed to X boss and billionaire Elon Musk for a job, tweeting, “Hello @elonmusk do you have a job for me? Please RT so M. Elon Musk can see it.” He also shared a confession video on X, explaining that he had made a small update to a line of code on his first day as a system administrator, leading to his supposed termination.
However, the truth was far more amusing. Vincent Flibustier was not a former CrowdStrike employee; he had never worked for the company. His post was a well-executed prank. After the viral success, he changed his bio on X to reflect his fabricated persona, stating, “Former Crowdstrike employee, fired for an unfair reason, only changed 1 line of code to optimize. Looking for a job as Sysadmin.” He also added, “Specialized in Fake News and Social network.”
According to France.TV, Flibustier is a satirical writer who runs a parody news portal Nordpresse. He later revealed the truth about his photo outside the CrowdStrike office, admitting it was AI-generated. He also explained the psychology behind his viral success, highlighting the ease with which people believe online information without critical evaluation.
Flibustier used his elaborate prank to warn against taking things at face value on the internet and spreading misinformation, especially with the rise of generative AI. He even shared a seven-point list of lessons we can learn from his fake post, underscoring the importance of media literacy in the digital age.
