John McAfee 'returns from the dead' to promote a memecoin on Elon Musk's X

McAfee died in 2021. His X account just started hawking a memecoin.
 By 
Matt Binder
 on 
John McAfee
John McAfee's X account launched the AIntivirus memecoin....three and a half years after he died. Credit: Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

If enough hasn't already happened this week – John McAfee is apparently back from the dead.

Well, his account on Elon Musk's X has been revived at the very least.

On Wednesday night, John McAfee's @officialmcafee X account started posting again even though McAfee himself was found dead from suicide in June 2021 in a prison in Spain while awaiting extradition to the U.S. 


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To be fair, the X account belonging to the eccentric founder of McAfee antivirus hadn't been completely dormant since his death. His wife, Janice McAfee, had been using his account with more than 1 million followers to mostly post and retweet other users' posts about John. 

However, in the @officialmcafee's first post since November of last year, McAfee's account claimed that he was actually back. 

In AI form. 

And he came back as AI in order to drop a memecoin.

"I'm back with AIntivirus. An AI version of myself," @officialmcafee's post reads.  "You didn't think I would miss this cycle did you?"

McAfee's X count is referencing the current crypto cycle which has seen an explosion in the popularity of memecoins, buoyed by President Trump's recent launch of his own $TRUMP token.

Speculation quickly ran rampant on X about McAfee's account possibly being hacked. However, @officialmcafee followed up with another post in an attempt to calm those fears.

"John's account has not been hacked," the account posted. "This is the real deal."

McAfee's widow, Janice, then posted a video on her own X account on Thursday morning explaining that the @officialmcafee's post was legit. 

Well, to be clear, not the part where John McAfee has been resurrected in the form of AI. Janice shared that the memecoin is a legitimate crypto token that she created to "honor John's legacy."

McAfee was no stranger to cryptocurrency before he died. In fact, McAfee had been indicted on crypto-related fraud and money laundering charges in addition to the tax evasion charges that landed him in prison in the first place.

McAfee reportedly lost much of his $100 million fortune before he died. According to his widow in 2023, McAfee died without a will or estate so he did not leave her any money behind.

As of the publication of this piece, McAfee's AIntivirus memecoin is sitting at a market cap of $37 million.

Matt Binder
Matt Binder
Senior Tech Reporter

Matt Binder joined Mashable's tech vertical in 2018, where he covers social media, tech policy, cybersecurity, online scams, cryptocurrency, AI, creator news, weird tech, and other related tech beats.

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