Florida Teenager Charged In Hack Of 130 High-Profile Twitter Accounts, Including Elon Musk, Bill Gates

A Florida teenager was arrested early Friday in Tampa for allegedly orchestrating a high-profile hack of 130 Twitter accounts belonging to public figures such as former Vice President Joe Biden, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

State officials called Graham Ivan Clark, 17, the “mastermind” of the operation, which netted more than $100,000 in Bitcoin in one day. The hijacked accounts asked for Bitcoin donations that were directed to a wallet controlled by the attackers.

“This 'Bit-Con' was designed to steal money from regular Americans all over the country, including right here in Florida,” Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said. “This massive fraud was orchestrated right here in our backyard, and we will not stand for that.”

Clark faces 30 felony charges and will be prosecuted in state court.

“This defendant lives here in Tampa, he committed the crime here, and he'll be prosecuted here,” Warren said.

Twitter said earlier this month the hack targeted “a small number of employees through a phone spear-phishing attack.”

“This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities to gain access to our internal systems,” the social media giant tweeted.