Tesla CEO and tech millionaire Elon Musk’s Twitter account, along with those of Bill Gates, Apple and even Cashapp, were hacked midday on July 15 in a wide-ranging Bitcoin scam.
While Musk is known for his wild Twitter antics and humorous memes, his followers were tipped off after he appeared to tweet something abnormal out of his usual repertoire of internet hijinks.
Musk seemed to promise fans double their payments to his personal BTC account — meaning he would purportedly “give back” twice the amount they sent in, encouraging them to send an amount of $1,000.
While some viewers were clearly wary of the scam, it seems that others were not so leery, with the scammers receiving over $100k at the time of writing across multiple hacked accounts from top personalities on the social media platform.
Other big names included in the unfortunate hacking were Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Cashapp, Apple and even Uber.
Thus far, all of the offending scam tweets have been deleted — but users are still warning fans against following the link and sending the scammers their money, in spite of the tantalizing promise to double their investment.
This wouldn’t be the first time a string of high-profile celebrities’ Twitter accounts have been compromised, by far; in fall 2019, a hacking group notably compromised the accounts of several top YouTubers, including the likes of James Charles, Shane Dawson and even the late Smash Bros star Desmond ‘Etika’ Amofah, leading to outrage at the individuals responsible.
The person who hacked Etika's account is deleting the tweets I think. Here they are just in case they did. pic.twitter.com/oM7NvLMcdq
— Fusion (@FusionAnimation) August 24, 2019
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Even Twitter’s own CEO Jack Dorsey was hacked — a figure who is coming under fire for an apparently serious security breach on the popular social media platform.
Thus far, Twitter has yet to respond to the scamming scheme, and fans are awaiting further information from the platform as even more accounts become compromised.
UPDATE: It seems that massive YouTube star Jimmy ‘Mr Beast’ Donaldson has likewise been roped into the hacking — a potentially disastrous turn of events, as the entertainer is known for his groundbreaking generosity and massive cash giveaways.
Sources have claimed that the Bitcoin account has now garnered over $7 million since the scam began.
UPDATE 3:19 PM PST – Twitter has addressed the widespread hack in a series of posts via its Twitter support page, warning users that they “may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this incident.”
You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this incident.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 15, 2020
Many have speculated that the inability to Tweet is targeting verified accounts only, due to the nature of the hack attacking verified users.
Stay tuned to Dexerto for more on this breaking story.
