Dozens of high-profile Twitter accounts were apparently hacked Wednesday as part of a cryptocurrency scam. This included the accounts of the billionaires Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mike Bloomberg, and Warren Buffett, as well as numerous tech startups and cryptocurrency-related sites. The Twitter accounts of former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were also compromised.
The affected accounts posted messages urging their followers to send $1,000 in bitcoin to a specific address, promising to double the contributions in return. The messages appear to employ a common scam tactic used to fleece people out of money by falsely promising to send a bigger sum in return for a payment.