Hacker on Twitter Posing as Elon Musk Steals $180K in Bitcoin

Elon Musk (image credit: Steve Jurvetson)

Summary: A hacker posing as billionaire Elon Musk and other verified accounts on Twitter has stolen $180,000 worth of Bitcoin as a result. In addition, once Twitter officials caught on, they blocked all accounts posing as Elon Musk - even the real one!

Here's what he did:

According to this MarketWatch article, the hacker took already verified Twitter accounts and retrofitted them with a picture of Elon Musk. Then he posted a message of charity: "I'm giving away 10 000 Bitcoin (BTC) to all community!"/"I left the post of director of Tesla, thank you all for your support!"/"I decided to make the biggest crypto-giveaway in the world, for all my readers who use Bitcoin."/"Participate in giveaway - musk.plus"

See screenshot below:

The scam message reads: "To verify your address, send from 0.1 to 2 BTC to the address below and get from 1 to 20 BTC back!"

Then the hacker changed other verified Twitter accounts and make them look legit, like an actual politician was getting in on the action. See screenshot below:

Elon Musk's Recent SEC Trouble

The hacker was taking advantage of the media spotlight after Elon Musk got into trouble with the SEC after publicly tweeting that he was going to take Tesla private at a specific price per share. The SEC found this to break the rules, and fined Elon Musk and Tesla each $20 Million and forced Elon Musk to step down as the Chairman of the Board of Tesla.