Musk and Trump both went to Penn—now hacked by someone sympathetic to their cause

The University of Pennsylvania has a somewhat unusual distinction: It is the alma mater of two of the planet’s most polarizing figures, Elon Musk and Donald Trump. As the political power of both men rose over the last year, the US government began to pressure Penn, first by pulling its research funding and then by targeting the school for past actions related to a transgender swimmer.

After the “sticks” were deployed, a “carrot” was offered. Penn became one of just nine schools nationally to be offered a special “compact” with the federal government, which would give the feds broad control over the school and its speech in return for preferential access to federal funds. Penn declined to sign the deal. (Making the whole surreal situation stranger was the fact that one of Penn’s own wealthy boosters apparently helped the Trump administration write the compact.)

In other words, Penn has become an obvious target of the Trump administration; now it has been targeted by a hacker claiming to share Trump and Musk’s grievances over affirmative action and “wokeness.”

On October 31, Penn was hacked after what the school describes as a “sophisticated identity impersonation commonly known as social engineering.” Using the stolen credentials, an unknown hacker penetrated various Penn systems, including the school’s Salesforce system, SharePoint and Box services, and marketing applications.

The hacker also appears to have grabbed a copy of the hugely sensitive donor database. According to the school paper, some of this information has already been released on LeakForums and contains “memos about donors and their families, receipts of bank transactions, and personal identifying information.”