Elon Musk Appears to Offer $1M Bounty to 'Convict' Twitter 'Botnets'

Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, appears to have offered a $1 million bounty to people who can identify and “convict” Twitter botnets. He made this announcement on his Twitter account on Sunday, June 13, 2021.

Musk’s tweet read: “If you can accurately predict & execute a successful short, Proprietary trading desk will buy you a coffee & give you a job. As will many hedge funds” followed by another tweet saying “Something is broken with SEC oversight” and then, in a separate tweet, he posted: “$1M for whoever can show me the most accurate way to short BTC for the ETH standard. Hacking the world of botnets and dismantling them is critical to reducing Twitter scams and fake news, which are constantly circulating.”

Musk’s tweets come at a time when Twitter is dealing with a massive botnet problem, where automated accounts are used to spread misinformation, spam, and engage in other malicious activity. Campaigns are against Musk on Twitter by these botnets as well. Additionally, the announcement is seen as a move to counterbalance the negative perception of cryptocurrency due to the financial risk and fraud associated with it.

Although Musk’s tweets were not entirely clear, they were soon followed by other tweets from several people who claimed that they had been targeted by scam accounts impersonating Musk or his companies. Some Twitter users are taking this as an opportunity to point out that the social media giant needs to do more to control botnets and eliminate fraudulent accounts.

This announcement from Musk is significant because of his influence and impact on the public perception of cryptocurrencies and Twitter’s security vulnerabilities. It will be interesting to see if this move prompts Twitter to take action and tighten the security of the platform.