If you’re a Twitter user with an interest in tech, you might be seeing some incredibly scammy ads right now. Some of the ads even use Musk’s face to sell SpaceX-themed crypto, falsely claiming the billionaire has endorsed the digital product.
Most of the scammers have abandoned Twitter, according to CEO Elon Musk, who sat down for an interview with the BBC on Tuesday night. But if you’re a Twitter user with an interest in tech, you might be seeing some incredibly scammy ads right now. Some of the ads even use Musk’s face to sell SpaceX-themed crypto, falsely claiming the billionaire has endorsed the digital product.
When the BBC asked Musk if he was concerned about the spread of misinformation on the platform—an interview that was livestreamed on Twitter’s Spaces audio feature late Tuesday—the CEO insisted it wasn’t a problem.
“I actually think there’s less [misinformation] these days because we’ve eliminated so many of the bots which were pushing scams and spam,” Musk said.
The BBC also asked Musk if big advertisers had returned to the platform after their much publicized departure when he bought the company in October 2022, and the CEO said, “not all, but most.”
“You can see it for yourself on Twitter,” Musk told the BBC.
But that certainly hasn’t been my experience over the past few months. As a regular Twitter user, I’ve been seeing lots of crypto scams that use Musk’s image—a problem that’s persisted.
“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,” one of the scam websites that’s advertising on Twitter claims.
Musk has publicly touted his investments in crypto like Bitcoin and Dogecoin, but the billionaire Twitter CEO has never started his own cryptocurrency. And the ad above, which is currently making money for Twitter, is transparently a scam.
The landing page for the Twitter ad directs users to a much more polished website with SpaceX branding where they can purchase the scam coins. And it even promises prizes for people who purchase the crypto.
“Investors who acquire 3,000 SpaceX Tokens will be eligible to spin a Lucky Wheel that could result in winning a variety of prizes, including a trip to Mars in 2025, a flame thrower from The Boring Company, a Neuralink brain chip that interfaces with OpenAI, or token bonuses,” the scam website claims.
