Spokespeople for the couple remain tight-lipped and one guest told CNN they signed an NDA, but a lid cannot be kept on widespread speculation about every detail of the event that is expected to take place this week.

At Harry’s Bar, a fabled institution that once counted Ernest Hemingway among its customers, the waiters are hoping some of the 200 guests — a mix of A-list celebrities, political dignitaries and powerful business executives — might stop in for one of their famous Bellini cocktails.

Whether or not Bezos will bring his yet-unnamed groomsmen there, as George Clooney did when he married Amal Alamuddin in 2014, is anyone’s guess. “We hope so,” one of the waiters told CNN. “We can’t divulge anyone who has made a reservation. We protect the privacy of all of our guests, not just the billionaires.”

From the date to the guest list, possible venues and the bridal gown and budget of $50,000 per guests, the rumor mill is spinning at a rapid pace.

Proceedings are being overseen by boutique event planners Lanza and Baucina, the Italian duo who transformed Venice’s Grand Canal into a red carpet for the Clooneys’ glitzy wedding.

Protesters believe there’s no space for a Bezos wedding in Venice, but the company has insisted that its plans are respectful of the city and the unique set of challenges it faces as one of the most overpopulated tourist sites in Europe.

“Rumors of ‘taking over’ the city are entirely false and diametrically opposed to our goals and to reality,” they said in a statement shared with CNN.

The night before, Luca Zaia, president of the surrounding Veneto region, announced that Bezos and Sanchez were donating €1 million ($1.16 million) to the Corila Consortium, an international scientific research group doing work on the Venice lagoon — a gesture of “love and responsibility” toward the city, he said.

The couple is sourcing some 80% of wedding provisions from local vendors, including pastries from the Rosa Salva pastry shop, the oldest in Venice, whose owners told CNN they have been commissioned to create “about 200 goodie bags.”

Murano glassware designer Laguna B also confirmed to CNN that it is creating special party favors. The company declined to share any further details.

Zaia is not concerned about the city’s plans to manage the wedding, telling one local paper, “I repeat, this is a city that handles 150,000 people a day. George Clooney, François-Henri Pinault and Salma Hayek, Alexandre Arnault, Elton John and many others got married here.”

He also surmised that the President of the United States, who is in Europe this week for the NATO summit, could conceivably be on the guest list, telling Corriere della Sera, “Of course, Donald Trump could also come to this wedding.” One imagines that Trump’s priorities may have shifted considerably over the weekend.

While the guest list has not been made public, Sanchez’s very public bachelorette party in Paris last month may offer clues as to who will watch on as she and Bezos say “I do.”

Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Katy Perry and Eva Longoria all took part in celebrations that included a boat trip along the Seine. Oprah Winfrey, Mick Jagger and Ivanka Trump have also been invited, according to the Associated Press, and Trump was photographed arriving in the city with her husband Jared Kushner, on Tuesday.

As is tradition, Sanchez will be keeping details of her wedding gown, and its designer, under wraps until the big day, but close followers of her fashion will know she is a regular wearer of Dolce & Gabbana.

Around 30 of the city’s elite water taxis, out of 280 total, are also thought to be reserved. One taxi driver told CNN he has been booked from June 25 through June 30 for “a big wedding,” but declined to say more on the subject. Gondolas have also been put on hold, with the city’s gondola association confirming they are ready for the event.

The city’s nine yacht ports have also been booked for the week leading up to the main event. Bezos’ $500 million Koru, which is always tailed by the smaller L’Abeona, are both in the Adriatic Sea already, according to the Marine Traffic website.

Venice’s airspace is closed to drones and non-authorized traffic, but one source told CNN that permission has been granted for private helicopters, particularly for anyone needing special security, such as heads of state.

The Marco Polo airport, no stranger to private jet traffic, already has a secluded area with direct access to private water taxis, making it easy for stars to slip into the city unseen.

The wedding date itself, by far the most protected detail, still remains unconfirmed and the couple seem hellbent on keeping everyone guessing up until the last minute. A person close to Venice City Hall told CNN that the wedding planners secured a variety of venues over a period of days and will decide what happens where and when based on the most uncontrollable factors — weather and protesters.

The wedding is expected to use a small handful of hotels in the city to accommodate guests or host events. One of the most talked-about possible venues is the Cini Foundation on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, which has hosted everything from G7 events to private concerts.

The sculpted gardens and monastery, where monks still pray, sit across the lagoon from the famous Piazza San Marco and would provide an intimate setting ideal for a dinner. Building work being carried out in mid-June looked suspiciously like a set being built — perhaps for a wedding concert?

The Aman hotel on the Grand Canal, where the Clooneys chose to wed, has also been mentioned as a potential location. Another top contender is the Scuola Grande della Misericordia, a 16th-century armory that would be perfect for the ceremony itself — although it is more vulnerable to protesters, who have already threatened to block the canals if the wedding party tries to reach the venue.

Interestingly, a rather wedding-esque gazebo has been erected next to the Excelsior Hotel on the Venice Lido, a stone’s throw from where the Venice Film Festival is held each year. But, as with the rest of the venues, nothing is confirmed.

The Amazon founder’s net worth was $200 billion, while Musk followed at $198 billion. Musk has lost about $31 billion over the past year, while Bezos has gained $23 billion, according to the index.

Tesla shares had tumbled more than 7% on Monday.

Musk had reclaimed the title of world’s richest person in May 2023, edging out LVMH (LVMHF) CEO Bernard Arnault, who runs one of the world’s biggest conglomerates and includes brands such as Louis Vuitton, Dior and Celine.

The three centibillionaires — Musk, Arnault and Bezos — have been in competition with each other for the top spot for months. Arnault had held the title as his wealth climbed due to a boom in luxury goods sales that helped drive up LVMH’s stock price.

Earlier this year, a Delaware state court judge threw out Musk’s 2018 pay package — worth more than $50 billion — that helped to make him one of the richest people in the world. Tesla shares also tumbled about 24% year-to-date.

Of course, the title of the richest person on earth swaps every few months, depending on markets performance.

Musk and Arnault still hold plenty of wealth — since 2020, the net worth of the five wealthiest people on earth has skyrocketed 114% to a total of $869 billion, after taking inflation into account, according to Oxfam’s annual inequality report.

The Amazon founder, 59, is engaged to the Emmy-winning journalist, 53, a source confirms to PEOPLE.

The happy news came as the couple are on vacation together in the South of France. Over the weekend, the pair were photographed enjoying a cheeky outing and attended the premiere of Apple Original Films’ “Killers of the Flower Moon” at the Cannes Film Festival.

Sanchez was also seen rocking a ring on that finger on Sunday while they spent time together on the billionaire’s $500 million yacht named Koru.

The same yacht features a wooden sculpture made in the likeness of Sánchez. Attached to the ship’s prow, the design includes a necklace featuring the symbol for Koru, which is Māori for loop or coil. It’s based on the spiral shape of an unfurling silver fern frond — a symbol that is special to the couple.

Koru symbolizes new beginnings — which Bezos has cited before on his Instagram — and a new phase of life, positive change, personal growth, and hope for the future.

The newly engaged couple took their relationship public in January 2019, after Bezos announced his divorce from MacKenzie Scott, with whom he shares four children, after 25 years of marriage.

At the time, the former Good Day LA co-host was also divorcing her husband of 13 years, Patrick Whitesell. Sánchez has two children with the agent as well as a son from a previous relationship with former NFL star Tony Gonzalez.

Over the years, Bezos and Sánchez have continued to grow together, with the couple going on family vacations, advocating for climate change and packing on the PDA.

“Happy birthday to the man of my dreams, who lights up my world with his laughter and kind heart. You have shown me that no great love is not bravely fought for,” Sánchez wrote in a loving post in honor of his birthday in January.

“I am so grateful for the memories we have made and the adventures yet to come,” she added. “Here’s to many more birthdays filled with love and laughter.”

Since stepping down as CEO of Amazon in February 2021, Bezos has focused his efforts on conservation and his space exploration company, Blue Origin. Sánchez has been with him each step of the way, and the pair are both dedicated to their work for the Bezos Earth Fund, an initiative they launched to help fight climate change, which she co-chairs.

Back in November, during a joint interview, the Amazon founder told CNN he plans to give away most of his $124 billion fortune in his lifetime, focusing primarily on fighting climate change and supporting others who can help improve the deep divide over social and political issues.

“The hard part is figuring out how to do it in a levered way,” he said of his philanthropic strategy. “It’s not easy. Building Amazon was not easy. It took a lot of hard work, a bunch of very smart teammates, hard-working teammates, and I’m finding — and I think Lauren is finding the same thing — that charity, philanthropy, is very similar.”

Sánchez added that they make “really great teammates.”

The businessman told news network CNN he would donate his wealth to fighting climate change and reducing inequality.

He has previously been criticised for not promising to dedicate his fortune to charity.

Investor Warren Buffett, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Mr Bezos’s ex-wife MacKenzie Scott have all promised to give their money away.

Mr Bezos revealed his plans after donating $100m to the country music star and philanthropist Dolly Parton to use for charitable causes.

Asked by CNN whether he intended to give away most of his wealth within his lifetime, Mr Bezos told the network: “Yeah, I do.”

He declined to provide details on where he would spend or donate the money, but said: “The hard part is figuring out how to do it in a levered way.”

Previous philanthropy

The multi-billionaire previously pledged $10bn to the Bezos Earth Fund, which he launched in 2020 to help fight climate change.

The move came after Mr Bezos and other entrepreneurs were criticised for spending vast amounts of money on trips into space instead of solving problems on Earth. Amazon had also been criticised in the past by its workers over its record on climate change.

Mr Bezos became one of the richest people on the planet after Amazon, the internet retailer he founded in 1994, became a global phenomenon.

He stepped down as Amazon chief executive in 2021 but remains chairman of its board. He also owns the Washington Post newspaper and space tourism company Blue Origin.

On Sunday Mr Bezos gave Dolly Parton the Bezos Courage & Civility Award, which recognises leaders who “pursue solutions with courage and civility”.

Ms Parton, who has supported causes such as child literacy, will be able to donate the cash to the charities of her choice.

“We couldn’t have thought of someone better than to give this award to Dolly, and we know she’s going to do amazing things with it,” Ms Sanchez told CNN.

In a video of the ceremony posted online, Ms Parton said “Wow! Did you say $100m?”

She added: “I think people who are in a position to help should put their money where their heart is. I will do my best to do good things with this money.”

Mr Bezos launched the award in 2021, with prizes going to activist Van Jones and chef and humanitarian Jose Andres, who established World Central Kitchen, which provides food in disaster-stricken countries.

Ms Parton – a singer-songwriter, actress, businesswoman and philanthropist – was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame earlier this month.

She has been a high-profile supporter of charities and founded the Dollywood Foundation, which has given books to children around the world.

Musk couldn’t help himself from chiming in on Twitter after Bezos posted a message about overcoming adversity.

“Listen and be open, but don’t let anybody tell you who you are. This was just one of the many stories telling us all the ways we were going to fail,” Bezos tweeted alongside an image of Barron’s cover story from 1999 calling Bezos “just another middleman.”

“Today, Amazon is one of the world’s most successful companies and has revolutionized two entirely different industries,” Bezos added in the tweet.

Shortly after midnight, Musk responded with a silver medal emoji, something Musk had promised to send to the Amazon founder now that Musk is worth almost $30 billion more than Bezos.

The tweet came after the gap between the world’s two richest men continued to widen last week, thanks in part to the new $100.3 billion valuations of Musk’s SpaceX. Most of his wealth is still tied to Tesla’s stock price.

Musk now boasts a net worth of $222 billion while Bezos’ remains at $191 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Last month, Musk warned that the tease would be coming.

“I’m sending a giant statue of the digit ‘2’ to Jeffrey B., along with a silver medal,” Musk said in an email to Forbes.

The tweet is the latest in an increasingly heated public spat between the world’s two richest men.

In addition to dueling for the title of world’s richest person, Musk and Bezos have clashed over their space ambitions.

This summer, Bezos flew to suborbital space on a 10-minute, widely watched launch with his company Blue Origin.

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Musk has criticized Blue Origin — and other rival Virgin Galactic — for investing so much in suborbital launches, which he says pale in comparison to the challenges of reaching orbit.

While Musk himself hasn’t yet traveled to space, SpaceX recently launched four civilian astronauts into space for a three-day trip and successfully returned them to Earth — the first mission of its kind.

Behind the scenes, the two companies have been in a multi-year contest for US government contracts.

In April, NASA awarded a $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX, passing up on a bid by Blue Origin.

And last month, Bezos’ company sued the space agency, alleging that it unfairly awarded the contract to Musk’s firm.

Musk responded by saying that Bezos’ Blue Origin should spend more time designing and building rockets and less time suing SpaceX.

“If lobbying [and] lawyers could get [you] to orbit, Bezos would be on Pluto [right now],” Musk wrote in a Twitter reply.

Blue Origin, meanwhile, has released infographics in recent weeks that call SpaceX’s Starship rocket dangerous and point out it is “a launch vehicle that has never flown to orbit and is still being designed.”

Separately, Bezos-owned Amazon has filed a complaint against SpaceX with the Federal Communications Commission, urging the regulator to reject the company’s plan to launch more satellites as part of its satellite internet business.

In return, Musk publicly mocked Bezos, who stepped down from his position as CEO of Amazon this summer.

“Turns out Besos [sic] retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX…” Musk wrote on Twitter in August — misspelling Bezos’ name, instead writing the Spanish word for “kisses.”

For Bezos’ part, he has mocked plans to colonize Mars, a key SpaceX ambition.

“My friends who want to move to Mars, I say, do me a favor and go live on the top of Mount Everest for a year first, and see if you like it, because it’s a garden paradise compared to Mars,” Bezos told SpaceNews in 2019. 

Bezos is said to be one of several billionaire investors in Altos Labs, a Silicon Valley tech firm working on experimental – and potentially dangerous – new life extension technologies.

The new company has hired dozens of experts from top universities to research how cells age and how to reverse that process.

This “reprogramming technology” aims to return normal cells to a “primitive” stem cell state – that is how cells act when someone is first born – in order to heal and regenerate.

Among those hired is Spanish scientist Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte. He is infamous for his controversial work on mixing human and monkey embryos, and predicts he will be able to extend life expectancy by 50 years.

When Belmonte tested his findings on live mice, they showed signs of age reversal – however, some mice developed deadly tumours called teratomas.

Altos Labs hopes to now further this and other research until it can reverse ageing in every part of the body – but it may be decades before the technologies are fit for human trials.

Bezos is said to have been interested in the field for some time, after previously investing in anti-ageing company Unity Biotechnology.

In a final letter to Amazon shareholders, Bezos also quoted the atheist Richard Dawkins, saying: “Staving off death is a thing you have to work at… if living things didn’t work actively to prevent it, they would eventually merge into their surroundings, and cease to exist as autonomous beings.”

Blue Origin said in a press release that the person, who asked to remain anonymous for the time being, had to bow out because of “scheduling conflicts.” The winner will instead take a spot on a future mission. Flying in their place — alongside Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, and Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pilot and one of the “Mercury 13” women — will be an 18-year old recent high school graduate named Oliver Daemen.

The flight is slated for July 20.

Daemen “was a participant in the auction and had secured a seat on the second flight. We moved him up when this seat on the first flight became available,” a Blue Origin spokesperson told CNN Business.

“We’re not disclosing how much he paid.” A source familiar with the matter said Daemen’s spot was purchased for him by his father, Joes Daemen, who is the founder and CEO of Somerset Capital Partners, an investment firm based in the Netherlands.

Oliver Daemen will be the youngest person ever to fly to space.

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Daemen, who plans to attend the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands this fall, will become the youngest person ever to fly to space, while Funk will become the oldest.

This trip will mark the first ever crewed flight of Blue Origin’s suborbital space tourism rocket, called New Shepard, and the company used that fact as a selling point leading up to a livestreamed bidding war last month.

The $28 million bid was far higher than most had anticipated the auction would fetch. Blue Origin donated the money to its nonprofit group, Club for the Future, which is focused on encouraging science and tech education among children.

Club for the Future in turn donated $19 million of that money to a variety of space-focused nonprofits, including the Brooke Owens Fellowship, which is a women-in-tech scholarship fund, and the famed but financially struggling Space Camp in Alabama.

Blue Origin has spent the better part of the last decade running the suborbital New Shepard rocket through a series of successful test flights that have been fully automated and, thus far, carried no humans.

The company announced last month that it was finally ready to begin scheduling flights for passengers and that Bezos, the Amazon billionaire who founded Blue Origin in 2000, would be on the first-ever mission.

An 82-year-old woman trained to be an astronaut sixty years ago. Now she’s going to space with Jeff Bezos

According to the company’s website, there are a few limitations on who can take a New Shepard flight: Everyone must be 18 years or older, be in good enough physical shape to climb seven flights of stairs in a minute and a half, be between 5’0″ and 6’4″ in height and between 110 pounds and 223 pounds in weight.

Passengers must also be able to fasten and unfasten their seat harness in less than 15 seconds, spend up to an hour and a half strapped into the capsule with the hatch closed, and withstand up to 5.5G in force during descent.

The Amazon Chief Executive Officer’s (CEO) net worth soared to a record $200 billion on Wednesday when shares of his online shopping behemoth closed at $3,441.85 on surging demand for contactless shopping.

Bezos, Amazon’s largest individual stockholder, has added more than $82 billion to his net worth this year as stuck-at-home consumers increasingly turn to the e-tail giant for their shopping needs.

Amazon’s shares are up 86 percent year-to-date and its market cap sits at $1.7 trillion.

The tech entrepreneur, who’s also the head of rocket company Blue Origin, now has $77 billion more than longtime richest man Bill Gates, who sits in second place with just over $123 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

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The 56-year-old executive owns 54.5 million shares of Amazon, representing a 10.9 percent stake.

His ownership stake in Blue Origin is also worth $7.2 billion, and he has $7.1 billion worth of cash and other assets, according to Bloomberg.

Even more staggering is that Bezos would have already surpassed the $250 billion mark had he not divorced his longtime partner and spouse MacKenzie, who received 20 million Amazon shares in the divorce settlement, putting her net worth at $64.4 billion.

Those shares alone make her the 13th richest person in the world.

With his $200 billion fortune, Bezos is wealthier than all three of the Walton siblings put together, who each hold an equal stake in Walmart, Amazon’s longtime retail nemesis.

The Waltons have a combined net worth of $173 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Bezos, Gates and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are currently the only people in the world enjoying 12-figure fortunes.

The move, which has been described as the greatest hack of all time also targeted former U.S. president Barack Obama, billionaire investor Warren Buffet, and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Rapper Kanye West and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, as well as the official accounts of both iPhone-maker Apple and ride-share app Uber were also compromised.

The official account for Twitter itself was not spared.

Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden was among the accounts hijacked by attackers. The message posted to Biden’s official Twitter account was deleted minutes after it was sent, however.

The compromised Twitter accounts, including some high-profile bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry accounts, posted similar messages within minutes of each other early Wednesday evening inviting Twitter users to claim high-value rewards.

It’s unclear how the hackers gained access to the accounts, some of which are known to use two-factor authentication.

“We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly,” Twitter posted. The company’s share price has dropped in after hours trading, down around 4%.

Shortly after posting its statement, Twitter appears to have disabled all verified accounts from tweeting, saying: “You may be unable to Tweet or reset your password while we review and address this incident.”

“I’m surprised Twitter hasn’t gone completely dark to prevent misinformation campaigns and political upheaval,” Rachel Tobac, the chief executive of cybersecurity firm SocialProof Security, told NBC News, adding: “We are lucky the attackers are going after bitcoin (money motivated) and not motivated by chaos and destruction.”

“We have partnered with CryptoForHealth and are giving back 5,000 BTC,” one of the hacked Twitter accounts posted along with a link to a scam website.

Donations to one bitcoin address used by the scammers, which can be seen here, have now passed $100,000.

The accounts of major bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Gemini were affected, as well as blockchain news outlet Coindesk.

“All major crypto Twitter accounts have been compromised,” Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss said via Twitter.

Some of the posts were deleted after being sent, however, some accounts that were used by attackers have continued to post links to the scam.

Despite the negative connotations of the high-profile scam, some in the bitcoin and cryptocurrency community aren’t worried.

“Any regulatory action in response to the hack is likely to focus on Twitter, rather than on bitcoin,” Cory Klippsten, tech investor and founder of bitcoin buying app Swan Bitcoin, said via Telegram, adding he’s expecting this event to result in an influx of new bitcoin users.

“At this early stage in bitcoin’s rise, almost all news is good news. A lot of people who’ve never given it a thought are going to be reading about bitcoin over the next few weeks, and wondering why the scammers chose it as the vehicle to pull off their scam.”

This style of bitcoin giveaway scam, promising high-value returns for a small donation, has been around for some time.

Fraudsters have used the names and likeness of celebrities and high-profile people from U.S. president Donald Trump to singer Katy Perry to con unsuspecting internet users out of bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

Last year, an investigation by the U.K.’s Which? magazine found those who have fallen victim of one particular bitcoin scam reported individual losses of up to $250,000.

Campaigners have lobbied for social media and internet giants to clamp down on such scams and both Twitter and rival social media giant Facebook have recently taken steps to fight fake news on their platforms.

“I could see some sort of change in policy against bitcoin or crypto giveaways, with similar posts being automatically flagged or removed,” said Klippsten.

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

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

Twitter said it was a “co-ordinated” attack targeting its employees “with access to internal systems and tools”.

“We know they [the hackers] used this access to take control of many highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf,” the company said in a series of tweets.

It added that “significant steps” were taken to limit access to such internal systems and tools while the company’s investigation was ongoing.

Meanwhile, Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey tweeted: “Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened.”

One cyber-security expert said that the breach could have been a lot worse in other circumstances.

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“If you were to have this kind of incident take place in the middle of a crisis, where Twitter was being used to either communicate de-escalatory language or critical information to the public, and suddenly it’s putting out the wrong messages from several verified status accounts – that could be seriously destabilising,” Dr Alexi Drew from King’s College London told the BBC.

Emergency response

Twitter earlier had to take the extraordinary step of stopping many verified accounts marked with blue ticks from tweeting altogether.

Password reset requests were also being denied and some other “account functions” disabled.

By 20:30 EDT (00:30 GMT Thursday) users with verified account started to be able to send tweets again, but Twitter said it was still working on a fix.

Dmitri Alperovitch, who co-founded cyber-security company CrowdStrike, told Reuters news agency: “This appears to be the worst hack of a major social media platform yet.”

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 30 minutes”.

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

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

But as the first such tweet from Musk’s account was removed, another one appeared, then a third.

Others targeted included:

• the rapper Kanye West
• reality TV star Kim Kardashian West
• former US President Obama
• former US Vice-President Joe Biden, who is the current Democratic presidential candidate
• media billionaire Mike Bloomberg
• the ride-sharing app Uber
• the iPhone-maker Apple

The Biden campaign said Twitter had “locked down the account within a few minutes of the breach and removed the related tweet”.

A spokesman for Bill Gates told AP news agency: “This appears to be part of a larger issue that Twitter is facing.”

Instagram message

The BBC can report from a security source that a web address – cryptoforhealth.com – to which some hacked tweets directed users was registered by a cyber-attacker using the email address mkeyworth5@gmail.com.

The name “Anthony Elias” was used to register the website, but may be a pseudonym – it appears to be a play on “an alias”.

Cryptoforhealth is also a registered user name on Instagram, apparently set up contemporaneously to the hack.

The description of the profile read “It was us”, alongside a slightly smiling face emoticon.

The Instagram profile also posted a message that said: “It was a charity attack. Your money will find its way to the right place.”

In any case, the real identities of the perpetrators are as yet unknown.

An unprecedented ‘smash and grab’

These “double your Bitcoin” scams have been a persistent pest on Twitter for years but this is unprecedented with the actual accounts of public figures hijacked and on a large scale.

The fact that so many different users have been compromised at the same time implies that this is a problem with Twitter’s platform itself.

Early suggestions are that someone has managed to get hold of some sort of administration privileges and bypassed the passwords of pretty much any account they want.

With so much power at their fingertips the attackers could have done a lot more damage with more sophisticated tweets that could have harmed an individual or organisation’s reputation.

But the motive seems to be clear – make as much money as quickly as they can. The hackers would have known that the tweets wouldn’t stay up for long so this was the equivalent of a “smash and grab” operation.

There are conflicting accounts of how much money the hackers have made and even when a figure is settled upon, it’s important to remember that cyber-criminals are known to add their own funds into their Bitcoin wallets to make the scam seem more legitimate.

Either way, it’s going to be very hard to catch the criminals by following the money. Law enforcement, as well as many angry users, will have some strong questions for Twitter about how this could have happened.

Cameron Winklevoss, who was declared the world’s first Bitcoin billionaire in 2017 along with his twin brother Tyler, tweeted a message on Wednesday warning people not to participate in the “scam”.

In the short time it was online, the link displayed in the tweets of targeted accounts received hundreds of contributions totalling more than $100,000 (£80,000), according to publicly available blockchain records.

The Twitter accounts targeted have millions of followers.

Last year, Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey’s account was hacked, but the company said it had fixed the flaw that left his account vulnerable.

Dr Drew recently co-authored a paper warning about the potential of Twitter being used to sow disinformation.

She said the latest incident highlighted the need for all major social media platforms to check their security measures, particularly in the run up to the US Presidential vote.

“Social media companies such as Twitter and, Facebook all have a duty to consider the damage and influence their platforms can have on the 2020 election, and I think some companies are taking that more seriously than others,” she told the BBC.

“Twitter actually has a good history of being forward-thinking and proactive in this space.

“But whatever the source of this attack [it seems they have] still not done enough.”

The FBI’s San Francisco field office put out a statement on Wednesday about the latest cyber-breach.

“The accounts appear to have been compromised in order to perpetuate cryptocurrency fraud,” it said.

“We advise the public not to fall victim to this scam by sending cryptocurrency or money in relation to this incident.”

The employees, who are married couple, work at Blue Origin’s headquarters in Kent, Washington, and one was last at the company’s office as late as Friday. The company has now had three employees test positive for COVID-19, as Blue Origin confirmed a separate first case on Friday, GeekWire reported.

That first employee worked at the company’s rocket factory in Kent, the company said, and was last at the facility on March 26. 

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“Blue Origin’s Human Resources team will remain in close communication with these employees throughout their recovery period to make sure they are getting the care and support they need from us while they quarantine, recover and seek medical care,” Linda Mills, head of communications at Blue Origin, told CNBC in a statement.

“We have also notified those employees who were in contact with them and have directed them to stay at home for the next 14 days to self-quarantine, and have deep cleaned the areas they visited,” she added.

“The health and safety of these individuals—and the Blue Origin team—is our first priority and main concern.

“We are following all CDC guidelines at all of our facilities, and have implemented additional procedures to ensure the ongoing safety of our employees,” she added.

The Seattle region is a hot spot for coronavirus cases in the United States, with companies such as Boeing and Amazon also reporting employees have tested positive for the virus. About 135 Boeing employees tested positive for COVID-19 as of Sunday, the company told CNBC.

Blue Origin and its around 2,500-person workforce are not the first in the space industry to see employees test positive for COVID-19. A SpaceX employee at the company’s Hawthorne, California, headquarters tested positive last month, CNBC reported on March 24, and the rocket competitor placed about a dozen employees under protective quarantine. 

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Blue Origin, like SpaceX, is one of many in the space industry deemed “mission essential” by the Department of Defense. A Pentagon letter allows companies working national security contracts to continue operations even if state governments enforce lockdowns or shelter-in-place orders.

However, that mission essential designation has reportedly proven to be controversial among some of Blue Origin’s employees. The Verge reported last week that several employees were outraged by pressure from Blue Origin leadership to conduct the next test of its space tourism rocket New Shepard.

While Blue Origin has national security contracts related to its other programs, New Shepard is a system built to launch people and small research payloads on short trips to the edge of space – a purpose employees told The Verge they thought was not mission essential during the coronavirus crisis.

Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith wrote to employees on Friday in an email seen by CNBC that the developing crisis means Blue Origin is no longer targeting a date for New Shepard’s next launch.

The company is “minimising the number of people” needed to travel to its facility in West Texas, Smith said, which continues to operate with ongoing rocket engine tests.

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has pledged $10bn (£7.7bn) to help fight climate change.

The world’s richest man said the money would finance work by scientists, activists and other groups.

He said: “I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change.”

Writing on his Instagram account, Mr Bezos said the fund would begin distributing money this summer.

Mr Bezos has an estimated net worth of more than $130bn, so the pledge represents almost 8% of his fortune.

Some Amazon employees have urged him to do more to fight climate change. There have been walkouts and some staff have spoken publicly. Also, Mr Bezos is financing the Blue Origin space programme.

Compared to some multi-billionaires, Mr Bezos had done only limited philanthropy. His biggest donation before Monday’s pledge is thought to have been $2bn in September 2018 to help homeless families and fund schools.

He has also been criticised for not signing the Giving Pledge, under which the super-rich promise to give away half of their wealth during their lifetimes.

The Seattle-based company is a neighbour of Microsoft, which in January unveiled a plan to become carbon negative by 2030.

Mr Bezos’s full Instagram post read: “Today, I’m thrilled to announce I am launching the Bezos Earth Fund.⁣⁣⁣

⁣⁣⁣”Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet. I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share. This global initiative will fund scientists, activists, NGOs – any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world.

“We can save Earth. It’s going to take collective action from big companies, small companies, nation states, global organisations, and individuals. ⁣⁣⁣

⁣⁣⁣”I’m committing $10bn to start and will begin issuing grants this summer. Earth is the one thing we all have in common – let’s protect it, together.”⁣⁣⁣

Shares of his Amazon.com Inc. surged 12% to $2,100 in extended trading at 4:16 p.m. in New York, after the largest U.S. e-commerce company reported fourth-quarter results that smashed Wall Street estimates.

Bezos, already the world’s richest person, added $13.2 billion to his fortune in about 15 minutes. At the current price, his net worth would be about $129.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

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Bezos, 56, owns about 12% of Amazon’s outstanding stock, making up the bulk of his fortune. His ownership of closely held Blue Origin accounts for about $6.2 billion. The late surge Thursday added more than $90 billion to Amazon’s market value, pushing it above $1 trillion.

His ex-wife, MacKenzie Bezos, 49, also has reason to celebrate, as she owns about 4% of the Seattle-based retailer. She started the day as the world’s 24th-richest person, with a $37.1 billion fortune.

Bloomberg’s wealth ranking officially updates after the close of each trading day in the U.S., so Amazon’s latest surge, if it holds, won’t be reflected until after Friday’s close.

The criticism, including from several high-profile and respected researchers, highlights the limits of a report produced by FTI Consulting, the company Bezos hired to investigate the matter. 

But it also underscores the challenges of finding rock-bottom truth in the world of digital forensics, a messy business shaped less by absolute certainties and more by degrees of confidence and calculated probabilities.

The report — a summary of which was released this week by United Nations investigators who vetted it — determined that in May 2018, Bezos’s phone received a WhatsApp message from the account of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with whom Bezos had used WhatsApp to communicate since at least the previous month. After the message, the report said, Bezos’s phone began transferring large amounts of data off of the device. And, according to the report, at least two subsequent messages from the crown prince’s account seemed to indicate knowledge of events in Bezos’s private life, the report said. The report suggested the incident bore hallmarks of sophisticated hacking software. 

Saudi Arabia has denied it was responsible for hacking Bezos’s device.

“Recent media reports that suggest the Kingdom is behind a hacking of Mr. Jeff Bezos’ phone are absurd,” the Saudi embassy in Washington tweeted Tuesday. “We call for an investigation on these claims so that we can have all the facts out.”

Even as some analysts suggested FTI made the best of a difficult situation, critics of the FTI report said the paper revealed a lack of sophistication that could have been addressed by specialized mobile forensics experts, or law enforcement officials with access to premium tools.

“It does seem like [FTI] gave it the good try, but it seems they’re just not as knowledgeable in the mobile forensics realm as they could have been,” said Sarah Edwards, an instructor at the SANS Institute, a security training and research organization.

FTI Consulting declined to comment.

A key shortcoming of the analysis, Edwards said, was that it relied on a restricted set of content obtained from Bezos’s iTunes backup. A deeper analysis, she said, would have collected detailed records from the iPhone’s underlying operating and file systems. 

Other security experts characterized the evidence in the report as inconclusive.

“It contains much that says ‘anomalies we don’t understand,’ but lack of explanations point to incomplete forensics, not malicious APT actors,” tweeted Rob Graham, the CEO of Errata Security, using the industry acronym to describe top-tier hacker groups. 

Alex Stamos, the former chief information security officer at Facebook and a Stanford University professor, said the report was “not very strong.”

“Lots of odd circumstantial evidence, for sure, but no smoking gun,” he tweeted.

Other researchers suggested ways for the investigation to generate more useful information. Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto, offered a suggestion that could allow investigators to gain access to encrypted information that FTI said it could not unlock.

The outpouring of researcher feedback suggests independent security and policy experts might be able to help shape what until now has been a private investigation. FTI has kept a tight hold on Bezos’s device; a source close to the UN team said the UN did not have access to the phone when it vetted the report. On Wednesday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sent a letter to Bezos asking for detailed technical information related to the probe to “help the United States Government, businesses and independent researchers discover who else may have been targeted.”

The FBI has been interested in the case from a counterintelligence perspective, according to two people familiar with the hacking investigation. Bezos’s team performed its own forensic analysis and shared the results with the FBI.  

Meanwhile, other members of the security research community are more sympathetic to FTI’s findings.

The report’s limited results are a reminder that it can be extremely challenging to reconstruct the activities of a determined, well-resourced hacker, said Kenneth White, a security engineer and former adviser to the Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security. 

“I think it has to be evaluated in the context of the entire investigation; it’s just one part of the story,” said White. “Some of the technical critiques around how the forensics were performed and what data were and were not analyzed are fair, but this is in no way a ‘typical’ phone hacking case, if there is such a thing.” 

Chris Vickery, director of cyber risk research at the security company UpGuard, said other evidence provided by FTI increased his confidence that Bezos was being digitally surveilled. 

The report’s analysis of WhatsApp messages sent by the crown prince’s account — messages that appeared to indicate knowledge of otherwise private information — were a key indicator, said Vickery. 

“When you’re investigating a crime, it’s important to consider lots of factors,” said Vickery, “and you’re not always going to have the smoking gun immediately. You have to bring the puzzle pieces together. You can’t ask for the whole puzzle all at once.”

One security expert put it more bluntly.

“There’s an absurd amount of Monday morning quarterbacking going on,” said the expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to preserve professional relationships with the report’s critics. “This isn’t a movie — things don’t proceed in a perfect, clean way. It’s messy, and decisions are made the way they’re made.”

How did attackers get into Bezos’s iPhone in the first place? And if someone as powerful as Bezos can be compromised this way, could you be at risk, too?

Here’s what we know so far.

What happened to Bezos

Bezos was hacked in May 2018 after receiving a WhatsApp message from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to a forensic analysis conducted by a team hired by Bezos and reviewed by UN investigators.

A source close to the UN team said UN investigators did not have direct physical access to Bezos’s phone but that they extensively vetted the research done by FTI Consulting, the independent cyber security experts hired by Bezos.

According to the experts’ findings, the suspicious message contained a video file. Soon after the video was delivered, the device transferred hundreds of megabytes of data off of the phone, apparently without Bezos’s knowledge.

If the forensic analysis is accurate, whoever was behind the attack stole more than 6 gigabytes of information this way over the next few months, UN investigators said in their assessment.

Saudi Arabia denied it was responsible for hacking Bezos’s device.

“Recent media reports that suggest the Kingdom is behind a hacking of Mr. Jeff Bezos’ phone are absurd,” the Saudi embassy in Washington tweeted Tuesday. “We call for an investigation on these claims so that we can have all the facts out.”

In his first public remarks Wednesday since news of the hack emerged, Bezos tweeted a picture of himself attending a memorial service for Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post journalist who was slain by Suadi agents in 2018, in an attack the CIA has said was personally ordered by the crown prince. “#Jamal,” the tweet said. The Post is owned by Bezos. (The crown prince has said that, as the leader of Saudi Arabia, he takes “full responsibility” for Khashoggi’s death, but he denies personal responsibility.)

How the attack worked

Studying Bezos’s iPhone, the forensics experts appeared to find nothing wrong with the video itself, according to the UN assessment. But the rest of the message included a bit of inscrutable additional code. Under normal circumstances, this extra code is harmless. It helps WhatsApp transmit messages to and from its users. But because WhatsApp scrambles its messages — using a technology called encryption — the researchers weren’t able to tell if, this time, the code also happened to contain malicious software written by hackers.

The encrypted software, and what it might hide, is emerging as a focal point for data and national security experts who say further investigation is still needed. On Wednesday, experts at Citizen Lab, a research group based at the University of Toronto, offered a possible solution for decrypting the additional software so that it can be studied.

Should I be worried about getting hacked like Bezos?

It takes a sophisticated actor and significant resources to pull off a hack like the one laid out in the report, cybersecurity experts say, making it a waste to use intrusion tools on most ordinary people.

Market prices for cellphone exploits can range from $50,000 to $150,000, said James Lewis, a senior vice president and cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But powerful business executives and high-ranking government officials do have good reason to be worried, Lewis added.

“If you’re a zillionaire who owns a newspaper, yeah, they’re going to go after you,” said Lewis. “If you’re a human rights activist, if you’re a politician, if you’re a senior official, you’re a good target.”

That list could also include Trump administration officials such as Jared Kushner — who, like Bezos, has reportedly communicated with the Saudi crown prince on WhatsApp. White House lawyers have determined WhatsApp is permitted for use so long as staffers do not share classified information and keep records of their conversations. Kushner knows those rules and complies with them, an administration official previously told CNN. The National Security Council declined to comment on Wednesday when asked about Kushner’s WhatsApp conversations with the crown prince and any concerns over them.

Attacks like the one alleged in the report are part of a worrying trend, said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), in a letter to Bezos on Wednesday obtained by CNN. Wyden cited several examples of the Saudi government purchasing hacking software from various vendors. Wyden asked Bezos to provide as much information as possible from the investigation.

“I am particularly interested in the technical details,” Wyden wrote, “which could help the United States Government, businesses and independent researchers discover who else may have been targeted and take steps to protect themselves.”

Even if I’m not a target, is there a risk to using WhatsApp?

Not necessarily, but it’s hard to tell from this one attack.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp has faced security issues before. Last year, WhatsApp sued Israeli technology company NSO Group, alleging that the company’s surveillance software abused WhatsApp’s video calling features to spy on activists and journalists. WhatsApp called it a form of “cyber attack” and closed off the software’s ability to further monitor users. NSO Group at the time denied the spying allegations and vowed to “vigorously fight” the suit, which is currently still pending before a federal court in California.

NSO Group was back in the news this week when its software was identified as the “most likely” cause of data being transferred off of Bezos’s phone, according to the UN investigators’ assessment of the FTI Consulting report.

In a statement to CNN Wednesday, NSO Group denied any involvement in hacking Bezos’s phone, and threatened legal action against those who claimed otherwise.

“Our technology was not used in this instance,” the statement said. “We know this because of how our software works and our technology cannot be used on US phone numbers. Our products are only used to investigate terror and serious crime. Any suggestion that NSO is involved is defamatory and the company will take legal counsel to address this.”

Then, in November, WhatsApp released another update, addressing a vulnerability that sounds similar to the attack that is said to have compromised Bezos’s phone. That flaw allowed attackers to compromise a WhatsApp user by sending them a “specially crafted MP4 file.” At the moment, it’s unclear if Bezos fell victim to this vulnerability, or a different one. WhatsApp declined to comment.

In any case, experts say, to steal as much data as the investigation claims was stolen from Bezos’s phone would likely require taking advantage of multiple vulnerabilities affecting a variety of systems on a phone, not just a WhatsApp vulnerability.

“Typically, an app-specific vulnerability would likely give the attacker the ability to run commands or access files within the targeted app,” said Ashkan Soltani, an information security expert and former chief technologist of the Federal Trade Commission. “However, sophisticated attackers often combine the attack with other exploits … in order to access files outside of the WhatsApp sandbox.”