Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s account hacked, but tweets now removed

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s Twitter account was “compromised” Friday, the social media network confirmed Friday after a stream of offensive tweets was posted.

“We’re aware that @jack was compromised and investigating what happened,” Twitter tweeted shortly after the incident and then said in a follow-up tweet that Dorsey’s “account is now secure, and there is no indication that Twitter’s systems have been compromised.”

The racist and vulgar tweets, which were up for about 30 minutes before being taken down, included messages such as “Hitler is innocent” and, using a vulgarity, asked “bald skeleton head tramp,” apparently referring to Dorsey, to unsuspend certain accounts.

Based on some of the tweets sent from Dorsey’s account, a group called Chuckle Squad was likely responsible and tweeted: “#ChucklingSquad get it trending for the Twitter password.”

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Twitter suspended accounts that the hacker or hackers retweeted while they had control of Dorsey’s account. The company also suspended the account that appeared to be responsible for the hack.

In 2016, Dorsey’s account was taken over by the hacker group OurMine, which also attacked other high-profile social media accounts including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The Twitter CEO is a co-founder of the service, along with Biz Stone and Ev Williams and also serves as CEO of Square, the payments firm. 

Contributing: Associated Press

Follow USA TODAY reporter Kelly Tyko on Twitter: @KellyTyko