Billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are among the high-profile individuals whose Twitter accounts were hacked in an apparent Bitcoin scam.

The official accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Kanye West also requested donations in the cryptocurrency.

“Everyone is asking me to give back, and now is the time,” a tweet from Mr Gates’s account said. “You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000.”

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The tweets were deleted just minutes after they first were posted.

On the official account of Mr Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX chief appeared to offer to double any Bitcoin payment sent to the address of his digital wallet “for the next hour”.

“I’m feeling generous because of Covid-19,” the tweet added, along with a Bitcoin link address.

Kanye West, former US President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, major companies Uber and the Apple Corporation were all targeted.

The address displayed in the tweets received hundreds of contributions totalling more than 800 Bitcoin ($7,373,128.00).