WASHINGTON - A wave of tweets in apparent hacking swept through Twitter on Wednesday, with more than half a dozen high- profile accounts — belonging to U.S.
presidential candidate Joe Biden, billionaire Bill Gates, and
rapper Kanye West, among others — used to solicit bitcoin
donations.
The cause of the breach was not immediately clear, but the
scale and the scope of the problem suggested that it was not
limited to a single account or service.
Shares of Twitter tumbled nearly 4% in trading after
the market close.
Twitter said in an email that it was looking into the matter
and would issue a statement shortly.
Some of the tweets were swiftly deleted but there appeared
to be a struggle to regain control of the accounts. In the case
of billionaire Telsa Chief Executive Elon Musk, for example, one
tweet soliciting cryptocurrency was removed and, sometime later,
another one appeared.
Among the others affected: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the
corporate accounts for Uber and Apple.
A spokesman for Biden's campaign did not immediately respond
to a request for comment. Tesla was not immediately available
for comment.
Publicly available blockchain records show that the apparent
scammers have already received more than $100,000 worth of
cryptocurrency.