Twitter hacking attack targets Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk

Several prominent Twitter users’ accounts look to have been compromised by hackers on Wednesday, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden, former President Barack Obama, and Microsoft’s Bill Gates, among many others.

Mr. Biden’s campaign told Buzzfeed that Twitter immediately locked Mr. Biden’s account following an apparent breach and removed a tweet not posted by Mr. Biden.

Accounts for Mr. Biden and Mr. Gates showed messages about the cryptocurrency Bitcoin and instructed Twitter users to send $1,000 and the prominent figures would respond by sending $2,000 back, according to messages posted on the accounts that no longer appear on Twitter’s platform.

“We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter,” Twitter said in a tweet from its Twitter Support account. “We are investigating and taking steps to fix it.”

Twitter also said users may find that they are unable to tweet or reset their passwords while the company works to address the problems.

The Biden campaign told Buzzfeed it is continuing to work with Twitter as the social media company actively works to remediate the ongoing problem.

Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, wrote to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Wednesday evening to request that Mr. Dorsey cooperate with the FBI and Department of Justice to help them investigate the alleged cyberattack.

“I am concerned that this event may represent not merely a coordinated set of separate hacking incidents but rather a successful attack on the security of Twitter itself,” Mr. Hawley wrote. “As you know, millions of your users rely on your service not just to tweet publicly but also to communicate privately through your direct message service. A successful attack on your system’s servers represents a threat to all of your users’ privacy and data security.”

Twitter said it would provide ongoing updates about the ongoing problem via its @TwitterSupport account.