Business magnate Elon Musk says he was locked out of Twitter this week after his tweets on anime were flagged as suspicious.
The alleged incident began shortly after the Tesla and SpaceX CEO declared his “love” for the art form Monday, in a message that has since gained more than one hundred forty thousand retweets.
i🖤anime
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2018
In follow up tweets, Musk sent out a picture of a female anime character and declared that he owned a Wolverine that was “chibi”—a Japanese slang word for a short thing, animal or person.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2018
When asked by one Twitter user about potential security features for Tesla accounts, Musk responded by asking if the person was interested in buying Bitcoin. The tweet featured a picture of another anime character adorned in Bitcoin-themed attire.
Wanna buy some Bitcoin? 😉😉 pic.twitter.com/9ZbBJ5fuVq
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2018
The tweet could be in reference to Twitter accounts that impersonate high-profile individuals in an attempt to scam users out of cryptocurrency.
Roughly five hours later, the entrepreneur resurfaced to state that his account had been locked by Twitter over fears he had been “hacked.”
“Twitter thought I got hacked & locked my account haha,” Musk tweeted.
Twitter thought I got hacked & locked my account haha
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 23, 2018
A source with knowledge of the incident told the Daily Dot that Musk’s Twitter was temporarily locked as a cautionary measure. Whether Musk’s account was flagged for the tweet appearing to replicate Bitcoin scammers or for the tweet thread in general remains unknown.
