Dormant Medium impact Fraud Checked 1w ago

SpaceX and Starlink X accounts hijacked for crypto scam

The official X accounts for SpaceX and Starlink briefly reposted promotion for a fake cryptocurrency called SCATMAN on July 12, 2026. The posts came from an account called Sam Catman that carried a badge falsely linking it to a SpaceX AI project. Attackers used the moment of credibility to sell off the token and pull an estimated 125,000 dollars in ethereum before the posts were removed and the scam account was suspended.

Started
Jul 12, 2026
Latest activity
Jul 16, 2026
Attributed to
Criminal group, not namedSuspected
Where
United States
Sectors
Technology, Consumers
Scale
two Elon Musk linked companies, SpaceX and Starlink, both hit through their official X accounts

Current status

No reporting or official statement newer than the July 16, 2026 confirmation of account suspension has surfaced as of August 28, 2026; later coverage found in searches concerns separate copycat account hijacks (Kylie Jenner, Sen. Cynthia Lummis, Airbnb's Brian Chesky) and only recaps the SpaceX/Starlink incident in passing.

Dormant: No new confirmed activity for a while, and nobody has called an official all clear.

Who is behind it

No individual, group, or government has been named as responsible; the attacker is known only by the account name Sam Catman, which was suspended.

Impact

Attackers briefly used the SpaceX and Starlink X accounts, with a combined following in the millions, to promote a fraudulent memecoin. The token's price collapsed once the creators pulled liquidity, a rug pull that is estimated to have taken about 125,000 dollars from buyers. No customer data, satellite systems, or company infrastructure were reported affected.

What to do

Treat any cryptocurrency promoted from a company's social media account as suspicious until the company confirms it through an official channel like a press release, and never buy a token because a verified or affiliate-badged account posted about it.

Timeline

  1. Aug 30, 2026

    No new confirmed activity reported, so this incident moved to dormant while it stays open.

    Dormant
  2. Jul 16, 2026

    Researchers reported the scam account had been suspended and the posts removed, while SpaceX, Starlink, and X had still not made any public statement on the cause.

    Containedphishfort.com
  3. Jul 12, 2026

    The attacker minted a large supply of SCATMAN tokens and sold them, pulling roughly 125,000 dollars in ethereum before the posts were taken down.

    Activephishfort.com
  4. Jul 12, 2026

    The official SpaceX and Starlink X accounts reposted promotion for a new token called SCATMAN from an account calling itself Sam Catman that carried a badge falsely linking it to SpaceX AI.

    Emergingphishfort.com

Sources

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