Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has been left red-faced after hosting a ad for a fake news story about Elon Musk leaving Tesla to invest in a new Bitcoin venture.
The scam ad, which was noticed by the ABC, started appearing on the BOM site in January.
It clicks through to a fake CNN-branded story claiming that Musk invested over US$72 million in a new start-up called The Bitcoin Code, which links to a scam site.
The weather bureau apologised for the ad, describing it as “unacceptable”. BOM has also suspended the third-party company which served the ads, according to the ABC.
It turns out that the BOM website isn’t the only one the scam ad has featured on, with Bloomberg also falling victim to it.
You cannot make this stuff up. A Bloomberg article just served me a fake ad for a fake news story on a fake CNN Tech website about Elon Musk leaving Tesla to start a Bitcoin trading venture. pic.twitter.com/dxiMgQql4P
— Natasha Loder (@natashaloder) February 1, 2018
