Elon Musk Poser Scammed $181k worth of Bitcoins

Numerous scammers over Twitter impersonated the CEO and Co-Founder of Tesla, Mr. Elon Musk, on November 5, 2018. One scammer even raked in around 28.21 BTC.

Photo for the Article - Elon Musk Poser Scammed $181k worth of Bitcoins

November 8, 2018. Numerous scammers over Twitter impersonated the CEO and Co-Founder of Tesla, Mr. Elon Musk, on November 5, 2018. One scammer even raked in around 28.21 BTC or around $181k (as of this writing) from scammed victims.

On November 5, 2018, a number of verified accounts on Twitter got compromised by several scammers/hackers. These accounts are then made to look like the CEO and Co-Founder of Tesla. The profile picture of the compromised accounts was changed into Mr. Musk’s and even changed the “display name” to sort of look like “Elon Musk”.

After changing its picture and information, these scammers will then post in the comment threads started by the real Elon Musk to make it look legitimate.

Photo for the Article - Elon Musk Poser Scammed $181k worth of Bitcoins

If you will look closely, the letter “L” on this poser account is not really an L at all. It was made to look like the letter L to make it appear “Elon Musk”. You can also see its username @patheuk (the original owner of the account) versus Mr. Musk’s original username @elonmusk.

@patheuk is just one of the many verified accounts that got compromised. A US politician, Mr. Frank Pallone Jr., with the username @pallonefornj, was also hacked and was made to look like Mr. Musk’s account as well.

According to a Daily Beast reporter, Mr. Lachlan Markay, the hacking of Mr. Frank Pallone Jr. does not have any political motivation but instead “Just looks like a Bitcoin scam”. He then added that the scammer’s address received BTC from its victims amounting to 26.38 BTC. (As of this writing the total amount received by the address is 28.21 BTC).

The two accounts are now back to its original owners. Pathe UK even posted that their account was hacked by an unknown third party and apologized for any unauthorized tweets.

Mr. Elon Musk remains one of the top favorites of scammers to impersonate even though he’s not directly tied to the cryptocurrency industry.

Read moreElon Musk Reveals His Cryptocurrency Portfolio

Aside from Mr. Musk, the founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin also has many posers. According to a previous report, Twitter is already well aware of the “scammer” situation and is now making a move to crack them down.  However, in doing so, they bumped a few legitimate accounts in the process.

Read more: Twitter to Act on Crypto Scams

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