SpaceX Crypto Scams Featuring Elon Musk’s Photo Still Common On Twitter

Forbes Innovation Consumer Tech SpaceX Crypto Scams Featuring Elon Musk’s Photo Still Common On Twitter Matt Novak Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. FOIA reporter and founder of Paleofuture. com, writing news and opinion on every aspect of technology.

Following Jul 23, 2023, 02:20pm EDT | Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin SpaceX, Twitter and electric car maker Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends an event during the Vivatech . . .

[+] technology startups and innovation fair at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris, on June 16, 2023. (Photo by JOEL SAGET / AFP) (Photo by JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images After Elon Musk bought Twitter in October 2022, I started to notice a big uptick in scammers trying to sell cryptocurrency by using photos of the billionaire. I wrote about the problem back in January , February and March .

But Twitter is still littered with the same scams. So let’s take a look at the one I saw yesterday. The crypto ad was purchased by a so-called “verified” user on Twitter by an account called Mr.

Chips. The problem, of course, is that Twitter no longer verifies the identity of any user on the platform. Musk decided to charge $8 per month for the blue check mark, which means anyone with a few dollars can buy “verification.

” The Twitter user’s bio includes a jumble of words without spaces, which may indicate it was created in an automated fashion: “Son,husband,father,grandfather – I learn something new each day!” Scam ad on Twitter trying to sell a SpaceX-themed crypto token using an unauthorized photo of Elon . . .

[+] Musk. Twitter The Twitter ad features a photo of Musk with his arms folded and the words “SpaceX Token Presale is Live. ” Clicking on the ad brings the user to a landing page that’s made to look like a news outlet or blog.

The domain is even hosted at telegra. ph, presumably to make it look like a reputable news site such as The Telegraph, a newspaper in Britain. But the .

ph top level domain is for the country of the Philippines. A scam ad for cryptocurrency using an unauthorized photo of Elon Musk. Twitter MORE FOR YOU E.

T. Might Even Harness Nearby Red Dwarfs Using Dyson Spheres Ukrainian Gunners Are Using Their American Made Cluster Shells The Right Way Next Generation Air Dominance Is A Must Have For American Air Power And RTX Is Uniquely Positioned To Play The text of the landing page claims Elon Musk has announced the launch of a new cryptocurrency token associated with SpaceX, something that simply isn’t true. “Breaking news for all crypto investors around the world! The visionary CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, has just announced the launch of the official SpaceX Token, and the Pre-Sale is now open for a limited time only,” the website reads.

The website explains that people can purchase the crypto for “$1. 70 per token,” which it suggests is some kind of deal. “‍Investing in the SpaceX Token not only offers the chance to shape the future of space exploration and blockchain technology, but also the opportunity to win incredible prizes, including a chance to visit Mars.

Lucky token holders will have the chance to win prizes from Tesla, the Boring Company, and Neuralink, as well as an exclusive trip to the Red Planet,” the fake news outlet page reads. If that all sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is. There’s also a link on the landing page to direct users to an area where they can purchase the scam crypto.

That website, which is hosted at spacexcrypto. com, arguably looks much more polished that the fake Telegraph page. A scam crypto page trying to sell a SpaceX cryptocurrency that has nothing to do with Elon Musk.

SpaceX Crypto Why is there a landing page at all? Why doesn’t the Twitter ad simply direct to the fake SpaceX page? I suspect it has something to do with the way Twitter screens ads. Twitter can presumably blacklist any ads that link to a site like spacexcrypto. com, which is where the current scam leads.

But by directing the user first to a site like telegra. ph, or any other number of news-themed landing pages set up by the scammers, it’s harder to block the scammers. As I mentioned, I’ve seen a lot of these scam ads this year.

It’s not clear how much money Twitter may be making off these scams. Twitter did not respond to questions emailed on Sunday. I’ll update this article if I hear back.

Whatever you do, don’t try to buy SpaceX crypto. It’s a scam. And given how common the ads are on Twitter, it’s a scam that at least some people must be falling for.

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