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Twitter accounts belonging to Michael Bloomberg, Wiz Khalifa, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Warren Buffett, CashApp and Uber, were also among those hijacked.

The scammers posted the same message, promising users who give Bitcoin to an account listed in the tweets double their payment in return, which is a common cryptocurrency scam.

“I am giving back to the community. All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back doubled! If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000. Only doing this for 30 minutes,” the tweets read.

As hackers were still sending out scam tweets more than an hour after the first accounts were breached, Twitter temporarily prevented all verified accounts from tweeting in an effort to stem the spread of even more scams, causing momentary chaos for news organizations, journalists and others.

As of 6:54 p.m. EST, the scammers appeared to have received 355 donations netting 12.86131944 BTC, which totals $118,365.30.

In a tweet thread late Wednesday, the company said hackers gained access to its internal systems through a successful “social engineering attack” against its employees (social engineering is a technique used by hackers to dupe users into clicking on malicious links or giving away sensitive data by crafting fake emails or other messages.)

Elon Musk activates SpaceX Starlink service over Ukraine

Last week, astronomers pointed out that something weird was happening on one of Musk’s Falcon 9 launches. According to SpaceX , the rocket was only carrying one satellite belonging to communications operator Globalstar, even though the rocket has the capability to carry so much more. These suspicions were confirmed at an official space catalogue of satellites recorded four US Government known probes tagging along with the flight.

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These satellites, which were labelled USA 328, USA 329, USA 330 and USA 331, were shared on Twitter by astrophysicist Dr Jonathan McDowell.

Speaking to Express.co.uk , Dr McDowell noted that, as satellites get smaller thanks to advancements in technology, it is becoming increasingly common for unrelated satellites to be paired together on a launch, which then allows for secretive missions like this.

He added that his “best guess” was that these satellites belonged to the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which builds, launches and operates spy satellites for the US.

However, he noted that this launch was particularly secretive, even for an NRO satellite.

He said: “The things that were different about this launch is that it wasn’t announced in advance that there would be classified payloads onboard.

Musk Mystery deepens as SpaceX secret launch could be NEW US spy agency (Image: Getty)

“And now that it’s launched, they’ve added four classified objects to the space catalogue, which is sort of an official acknowledgement that yes there were four spacecraft on board.

“They’re satellites that the US Government acknowledges as its own but isn’t going to tell you what they’re up to.”

According to Dr McDowell, there were many questions about the launch.

He said: “SpaceX could have said a day before the launch that they’re going to be secret satellites on board without saying anything more about them.

“But they didn’t do that, and that seems unnecessarily coy.

READ MORE: Musk mystery as ‘four unidentified payloads’ spark fears

Facts about SpaceX (Image: Express)

“The other thing they could have done is to say that they’re launching four satellites for the NRO, or for the airforce or the space force and they didn’t do that.

“So we still don’t know which part of the US secret apparatus owns these satellites, and normally they do say that. ”

He added that this “unusual level” of secrecy was “clearly intentional”, pointing to the fact that SpaceX kept the cameras off during the phase where they released the US Government satellites, without acknowledging that’s what they were doing.

The astrophysicists ridiculed this decision, which he believes could have been taken to hide the orbit of the satellite.

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US President Joe Biden at NRO offices (Image: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

He said: “The whole thing of keeping the orbits of the satellite secret that they do- within a day, amateur astronomers had located the satellites in orbit.

“You can see the satellites going overhead in the sky because you can’t make the sky secret.

“Now we know the orbits of these satellites, even though the US Government hadn’t announced them.”

Dr McDowell admitted that while it’s possible the launch was kept secret due to some “bureaucratic contracting issue”, it’s could also be possible that the satellites belonged to a new clandestine, classified US agency, similar to the NRO’s operations before the agency became declassified in 1992 and public came to know of it.

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A recent SpaceX launch carrying Starlink satellites (Image: Red Huber/Getty Images)

He said: “The only remaining question is: are these satellites from the NRO, or maybe is there sme new secret agency that’s still secret, that is operating these satellites.

“If you want tinfoil, most people have heard of the CIA, most people have not heard of the NRO.

“Clearly, the CIA sucks at being a secret agency, and now the NRO is getting so well known after 30 years, it wouldn’t surprise me that there’s some bureaucratic spy organisation that feels like it’s time for yet another secret agency that will do naughty things for a while before its exposed.”

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