--- title: "Wait, Did Zuckerberg Just Jack Muse the Band’s Instagram Handle For His New AI?" description: "The Instagram handle used by the English rock band Muse has been taken over by Meta's newly announced AI tool." date: "2026-09-09" modified: "2026-09-09" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore.md" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/zuckerberg-meta-muse-handle" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Meta" --- # Wait, Did Zuckerberg Just Jack Muse the Band’s Instagram Handle For His New AI? ![A triptych image with the center showing a man with curly hair and a light-colored shirt speaking in front of green foliage, with the Muse app logo and the text "today we are launching Muse," displayed. The left and right panels feature a man playing an electric guitar under intense red lighting, with motion blur effects emphasizing dynamic movement.]() Muse, the popular English rock band that's been selling out arenas for decades, is no longer @muse on Instagram, where it boasts nearly three million followers. That's because on Tuesday, Meta, which owns Instagram, [announced]() a new "personal AI agent" also called Muse — which is now taking the rock band's original handle, in an act of what appears to be corporate eminent domain for a long-established username. Indeed, an [archived version]() of the band's website shows that just last month, it held the @muse handle on Instagram. Now it's going by @museband, because Mark Zuckerberg apparently couldn't settle for his new tool being stuck with the handle @museAI. A similar swap happened on X. Meta's newfangled AI got the @muse handle, while Muse had to settle for even clunkier @musetheband. The changes were immediately noticed by the band's fans, who largely didn't sound impressed by Meta's naming scheme. One viral Reddit post [claimed]() Muse were "forced" to change its social media handles, fomenting further outrage. "That's genuinely the worst," [fumed]() one bewildered fan. "Mark Zuckerberg is such a loser," another said. Others, in classic music fan fashion, [accused]() the English rockers of being "sellouts," seemingly under the impression that Muse took a Big Tech payday in exchange for giving up its social media handles. It's not clear what happened to facilitate the username swap. Given that this happened on both Instagram and X, it seems possible that Meta came to some sort of agreement with Muse to take its handle, which the band has been sitting on for over a decade now. Meta didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the handover was consensual, and whether the band was paid for the handle. The actual band hasn't commented on the situation either, adding to the confusion. Of course, it wouldn't be unprecedented for a social media site to jack someone's username without compensation or recourse. When Elon Musk rebranded Twitter into X in 2023, he [took the username]() @X from someone who had been holding onto it since 2007. The only thing the company offered in return was some merch and a chance to visit X's headquarters. **More on Meta:** [*Facebook Is Hosting Huge Numbers of Horrifying AI-Generated Videos of Violent Child Abuse, and Meta Is Barely Even Pretending to Care About Taking Them Down*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()