NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — A flood of high-profile celebrities and politicians had their Twitter accounts hacked Wednesday afternoon as part of an apparent Bitcoin scam that silenced many on the platform for hours as the company worked to address the security breach.
Accounts that were targeted included former President Barack Obama, Apple, Uber, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Elon Musk, former Vice President Joe Biden, Warren Buffett and more.
High-profile celebrities, such as Kanye West, were also hacked.
The tweets asked people to submit Bitcoin payments to a seemingly random address to have the payment doubled in return.
For example, in a tweet posted to Bill Gates' account, the fraudulent Tweet asked people to send $1,000 to the Bitcoin address to receive $2,000 back.
"I am giving back to the community. All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back doubled! If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000. Only doing this for 30 minutes," a pinned tweet on Musk's account read before it was removed minutes later.
Sources told CBS News that whoever was behind the hack made $100,000 in the 5 p.m. hour.
Around 5:45 p.m. Twitter said, "We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly."