What Happened To Elon Musk's Twitter Account? A Look At The Odd Bitcoin, Anime Tweet

Elon Musk stands out among tech billionaires for his prolific and perhaps unfiltered use of Twitter, leading to several complications in recent months.

On Monday night, Musk’s tweets apparently raised the ire of the social network itself, instead of investors or federal authorities, as Twitter briefly locked his account.

Musk had posted several irreverent tweets Monday, which culminated in the Tesla co-founder and CEO jokingly asking a user if they wanted to buy bitcoin. The tweet was accompanied by a picture of an anime woman in bitcoin-themed attire, as Musk had been tweeting about anime earlier that day.

After six hours of no activity, Musk said Twitter thought his account had gotten hacked and locked him out. Twitter often locks users out of their accounts if it appears they have been compromised, prompting the account owners to verify their identities to get the accounts unlocked.

As noted by the BBC, cryptocurrency scammers posing as rich celebrities are actually a common occurrence on Twitter. One example involved an account under the name Warren Buffett — it lacked a signature blue verification checkmark — that asked users to deposit Ethereum into an address to get more back.

Twitter’s policy prohibits public comments about why any individual account is locked.

Musk frequently uses Twitter to announce big news about his companies or post random thoughts. The former approach recently got him in trouble with the SEC for possibly misleading investors about taking Tesla private. The latter got him into legal trouble with a Thailand cave diver after Musk made unsubstantiated claims that the man was a pedophile.

Musk, 47, joined Twitter in June 2009. He has 23.2 million followers and has tweeted more than 5,700 times.