Why did Malaysian ‘NASA Citizen Scientist’ make his Twitter account private?

[ UPDATE 3/05/2020 18:13]: Azhar Ali was met with many netizens questioning the legitimacy of his tweet before deciding to post a Twitter thread in light of the accusations. Read the latest update here.

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We earlier reported that 20-year-old Malaysian Muhammad Azhar Ali claimed that he was recently awarded a prestigious NASA scholarship after taking part in the Artemis Student Exchange Program. However, he has recently changed his Twitter account from public to private.

Azhar Ali claimed in his tweet that he beat out more than 3 million entries all around the world, obtained a top 1 percent score from a NASA SUITS (Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students) competition and even included a graphic showing his “Super Distinction score” of 96.77 percent Spacesuit Interface Efficiency Level.

While we cannot confirm why he changed his public Twitter account to private after garnering the attention of the likes of Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin and Minister of Higher Education Dato Dr Noraini Ahmad on Twitter, we did notice quite a few tweets ‘debunking’ his claims.

Many questioned Azhar’s legitimacy, stating that the contest that he entered was only meant for U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents, and that the challenge also needed to be on-site in Houston, Texas. Netizens also questioned his screenshot of his picture on NASA’s website, as when we tried looking for an “Azhar Ali” in NASA’s Citizen Scientists section, no note of his presence was there. There are even netizens who are questioning the legitimacy of the graphics posted by Azhar.

We have tried reaching out to him earlier today to ask how he got the scholarship if you need to be a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident to qualify, but he hasn’t responded. We’ve also reached out to NASA for confirmation, and will keep updated on this story.

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