The story so far.
Tesla chief Elon Musk sent a mini-submarine to Thailand in the hope that it would help rescue boys trapped in a flooded Thai cave.
The rescue team in Thailand determined Musk’s mini-submarine wasn’t required.
Some accused Musk of trying to crowbar himself, and his companies, into the headlines of a story that had grabbed the world’s attention.
British rescue diver Vern Unsworth ridiculed Musk’s mini-submarine in an interview with CNN.
Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk made an unfounded and disparaging claim about an expert caver involved in the Thai cave rescue, after the caver criticized Musk's idea of using a mini-sub for the rescue: https://t.co/aPifpjBPdy pic.twitter.com/CJAmJAK3qY
— CNN International (@cnni) July 16, 2018
Clearly that interview prickled Musk, who posted a (now deleted) tweet to his 22 million followers describing Unswoth as a paedophile. When challenged over the accusation, Musk said “Bet ya a signed dollar it’s true.”
Wow – that escalated fast. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect from a hacked celebrity’s Twitter account…
As BBC News reports, following a backlash from Tesla investors, Musk has posted an apology.
Which makes him at least the second thin-skinned high-profile Twitter user to retract his words this week.
I guess if you’re responsible for public relations it can be hard to tell obstinate head honchos that they’re causing real damage when they act inappropriately online. Let’s hope that Elon Musk and similar offenders learn their lesson.
Oh, and what do you know. Once again, the cryptoscammers leapt on Elon Musk’s thread to promote a cryptocurrency giveaway scam.
In the below screenshot, everything circled in red is by a bogus Elon Musk. Many users probably wouldn’t notice the lack of a verification checkmark, or that the tweets are posted by @elomtusk rather than @elonmusk.
As we described on last week’s “Smashing Security” podcast, time and time again scammers are creating accounts in the names of high profile Twitter users and using devious tricks to trick followers into believing they are reading a genuine message.
Smashing Security #086: 'Elon Musk submarine scams and 2FA bypass'
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Hey Graham. Somethings wrong with your CDN, eg
https://cdn.grahamcluley.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/elon-musk-apology.jpeg not showing up.
I think this must have been a temporary glitch. Do always feel free to email me at [email protected] if you think there's a problem with the website.
Cheers
Perhaps your mention of a retraction by a second thin skinned celebrity could be explained. If you mean Trump you should say so. But if it is him you should also understand he's got a thick hide. Bullets bounce of him. Let's encourage that sort of leader who knows whats wrong and heads to the pass and does battke head on instead of hiding….now thats a change for a leader…
If you look again at my article you'll notice that "second thin-skinned high-profile Twitter user" is a hyperlink. So not that hard to work out who I'm referring to. :)