Here's What You Need to Know About the Bitcoin Scam That Hacked the Twitter Accounts of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Others The social media platform's value took a big hit after a massive breach affecting celebrities, politicians and tech leaders.
By Dan Bova
Crypto hackers took over the Twitter accounts of prominent users including Bill Gates, Kanye West, Elon Musk and Barack Obama.
"I am giving back to the community," began a tweet that promised to double any Bitcoin donations made by followers.
The Bitcoin wallet where followers were asked to send money received more than $118,000 before Twitter locked down all verified accounts to shut down the scam. "You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this incident," the company explained in a tweet.
Related: 5 Biggest Credit Card Scams and What You Can Do to Protect Yourself
Jack Dorsey sent out the following tweet to address the situation:
Shares of Twitter dropped by more than 4 percent in the aftermath, losing approximately $1.3 billion in market value.Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened.
We're diagnosing and will share everything we can when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened.
