Twitter hack spoofs Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and others

Twitter accounts for prominent people and businesses were hacked, and asked supporters to send bitcoin.

Published: July 15, 2020 6:10pm

Updated: July 16, 2020 12:08pm

The Twitter accounts of multiple high-profile people and businesses were targeted in an apparent hack on Wednesday.

People including former President Barack Obama, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West, Mike Bloomberg and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were reportedly hit, along with major businesses including Apple and Uber.

Tweets fraudulently posted to social media accounts asked people to send bitcoin, a cryptocurrency.

The Washington Post reported that one tweet on Musk's account that has been deleted said: "Feeling greatful, doubling all payments sent to my BTC address! You send $1,000, I send back $2,000! Only doing this for the next 30 minutes.”

The Post reported that Biden's account tweeted about the identical bitcoin wallet address. The Wall Street Journal, citing Blockchain.com said that the bitcoin address shared on Biden's feed had received more than $100,000 worth of bitcoin.

Twitter has said that it knows about the issue and is working to address it.