News

Eli Lilly stock tanks after fake Twitter Blue post saying: 'Insulin is free'

Eli Lilly stock tanks after fake Twitter Blue post saying: 'Insulin is free'
Controversial Twitter takeover: Musk announces $8 monthly charge for blue check mark
Video

Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly saw a sudden drop in its stock thanks to an impersonator using Twitter Blue.

When Elon Musk introduced Twitter Blue it was to allow anyone to obtain a verified check mark so long as they paid the $8.99 subscription fee.

Quickly, Musk ran into impersonation problems and decided to add a feature that would tell Twitter users which accounts were verified for notability versus subscription.

By clicking on the blue checkmark on a verified Twitter user's profile, people can tell why their account received verification.

But that didn't solve the problem.

Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

On Thursday, Eli Lilly's stock closed around $368 USD. Later that night a Twitter Blue subscriber created a fake Eli Lilly account and began tweeting as though they were the company.

"We are excited to announce insulin is free now," Twitter account @EliLillyandCo wrote.

Because the account seemed legitimate and it wasn't clearly marked as Twitter Blue verified, people assumed it was real.

By Friday morning, Eli Lilly's stock fell to $346.

The company tweeted on Friday, "We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account. Our official Twitter account is @LillyPad."

Musk also paused Twitter Blue verification rollout on Friday as other companies faced similar issues.

While Eli Lilly's stock was negatively impacted, the parody account's tweet did bring attention to a major issue in the US- the price of insulin.


Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The Conversation (0)