Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos had their Twitter accounts hacked Wednesday afternoon in an apparent cryptocurrency giveaway scam. Other accounts including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Apple, Uber, and Square’s CashApp were also hacked. Update, 2:45 p.m. PT: Here’s the first statement from Twitter:
We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 15, 2020
The tweet below was posted from Gates’ account at 1:34 p.m. PT, but was then deleted. The same tweet from Gates appeared at 1:48 p.m. PT.
A tweet from Musk was sent out just before 1:30 p.m. PT and was also deleted, before another appeared at 1:50 p.m. PT. Update: Another similar tweet appeared at 2:19 p.m. PT.
Biden, Obama, and Bezos were also hacked:
Here are the tweets from Apple and Uber’s accounts:
Uber responded with this:
Like many others, our @Uber account was hit by a scammer today. The tweet has been deleted and we’re working directly with @Twitter to figure out what happened.
— Uber Comms (@Uber_Comms) July 15, 2020
More than $100,000 had been funneled to the bitcoin address included in the tweets.
Twitter stock was down more than 3% in after-hours trading.
Here is more commentary from others:
UPDATE: @elonmusk, @CashApp and @Ripple also appear to be compromised, among other prominent accounts. CoinDesk has reached out to Twitter for comment. https://t.co/l0q5PwuJ32
— CoinDesk (@CoinDesk) July 15, 2020
ALL MAJOR CRYPTO TWITTER ACCOUNTS HAVE BEEN COMPROMISED.
2FA / strong password was used for @Gemini account. We are investigating and hope to have more information shortly. https://t.co/X3C0uJzc6C
— Cameron Winklevoss (@winklevoss) July 15, 2020
Wow – massive sitewide hack. Search on “doubling all payments” — it’s not just billlionaires spewing this…. https://t.co/9Hj3ofeyI4
— Mark Harris (@meharris) July 15, 2020
The Verge noted that Musk has been targeted by bitcoin scammers in the past.
