Trump to keep Twitter after hacks, White House says

WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump will maintain his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account after a series of high-profile verified accounts were hacked, the White House said Thursday.

"The president will remain on Twitter, but his account was secure and not jeopardized during these attacks," spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany told reporters.

Several prominent Twitter accounts were hacked Wednesday including those of musician Kanye West, tech luminary Elon Musk and US presidential contender Joe Biden.

The accounts of former President Barack Obama, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, financier Warren Buffet and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg were also affected.

Screen grabs taken from the accounts appeared to show them posting a link asking for Bitcoin donations, variously saying in some form they are "giving back" to their communities or fans by doubling any donations provided via the fraudulent links.

Shortly after the hack was discovered Twitter proactively froze troves of accounts, including verified accounts and any that changed passwords within the past 30 days.

"This was disruptive, but it was an important step to reduce risk. Most functionality has been restored but we may take further actions and will update you if we do," the microblogging website's support account said.

The attacks, Twitter said, were "a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools."

The FBI is investigating.