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Twitter Accounts Of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Others Hacked

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF / CNN) -- Twitter accounts belonging to Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Apple, among other prominent handles, were compromised on Wednesday and posted tweets that appeared to promote a cryptocurrency scam.

The accounts, along with those of former President Barack Obama, Kanye West, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos and Mike Bloomberg, posted similar tweets soliciting donations via Bitcoin to their verified profiles on Wednesday.

"Everyone is asking me to give back, and now is the time," Gates' tweet said, promising to double all payments to a Bitcoin address for the next 30 minutes.

A spokesperson for Twitter said the San Francisco-based company is looking into the issue.

"We can confirm that this tweet was not sent by Bill Gates," a spokesperson for Gates told CNN Business. "This appears to be part of a larger issue that Twitter is facing. Twitter is aware and working to restore the account."

"Like many others, our @Uber account was hit by a scammer today," the company tweeted. "The tweet has been deleted and we're working directly with @Twitter to figure out what happened."

 

© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten. CNN contributed to this report.

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