Gizmodo filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FTC to get complaints sent to the federal agency about crypto scams that pretend to be affiliated with Musk. We obtained 247 complaints, all filed between Feb. and Oct. of this year, and they’re filled with stories of people who believed they were watching ads for authentic crypto investments sanctioned by Musk on social media.
The ads sometimes featured the names of Musk’s various companies, like SpaceX, Tesla, and X, while other times they utilized Musk’s association with neo-fascist presidential candidate Donald Trump.
…
Some people in the complaints believed they were talking directly with Musk, a sadly common story that has popped up in news reports before. But they weren’t talking with Musk, of course. They were communicating with scammers engaging in what’s called pig butchering—the name for a type of fraud popularized in the mid-2010s where scammers extract as much money as possible through flattery and promises of tremendous profits if the victim just “invests” where they’re told.
When these scams first started featuring Musk, it was clear that he was a common lead because of his wealth. Pretty much just “Get rich quick, and be rich like [insert rich guy here]”. I’ve seen scams in the past with Buffet, Gates, or Bezos on it before, because the kind of people who fall for a get-rich-quick scam are the kinds of people who idolize wealth.
But now it seems that Musk fans are a uniquely exploitable group. They are easily fooled by wild claims, and quickly subscribe to magical thinking. At this point, they’re just low-hanging fruit.