Massive Twitter Hack Hits Obama, Biden, Bloomberg, Musk, Kanye, Gates, More

The Twitter accounts of some of the world’s most powerful people, including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Michael Bloomberg were compromised earlier today, with hackers using their access to tweet out a Bitcoin scam. Bitcoin worth more than $100,000 have reportedly been transferred to the hackers.

The compromised accounts included former President Barack Obama, current Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, businessman and former Democrat presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Other effect accounts reportedly include brands such as Apple and Uber, and entertainers like Kanye West.

The hack put the accounts of some of the world’s most powerful people in the hands of an unknown party, who used their control to start a cryptocurrency scam, asking the accounts’ followers to send quantities of Bitcoin to a digital wallet belonging to the hackers.

The scam messages told Twitter users that they would be beneficiaries of billionaire philanthropy, receiving double what they paid into the Bitcoin wallet. “I am doubling all payments sent to my BTC address for the next 30 minutes,” said the scam messages. “You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000.”