Elon Musk inadvertently promoted a $80M memecoin scam

A social engineering scam involving the compromised X account of Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis led to a massive pump-and-dump scheme involving the memecoin Shivolink (SLINK). The scam was triggered when Elon Musk replied to a post on Zilis’s hacked account with an emoji, which traders interpreted as an endorsement of the project.

Following Musk’s interaction, the SLINK token's market capitalization surged past $80 million within hours. However, the rally was short-lived; the fraudulent post was subsequently deleted, causing the coin to crash by over 95% and fall below a $1 million market cap. The event resulted in significant financial losses for many traders, while insiders and those connected to the hack reportedly profited from the volatility.