Global pharma company Eli Lilly lost $15 billion due to one tweet; here's how

World's richest man Elon Musk announced a major overhaul in Twitter after he officially took over as the new boss 2 weeks ago. However, Musk may not have anticipated the challenges he might face during the course of time.

The platform had to pause its newly relaunched premium service of providing blue tick verification to anyone who pays 8$. This is because the social media platform was flooded by raft of fake accounts who got verified after paying the required amount.

In one such incident, a 'fake verified' account cost insulin manufacturing global pharma company over US $15 billion in a day, according to a Zee Business report.

Here's how-

As per the report, a US-based pharmaceutical company that manufactures insulin Eli Lilly already has a verified account with the handle @LillyPad. However, a fake account impersonating it with a Twitter handle @EliLillyandCo got verified after paying $8 to Twitter.

Also Watch| Musk suspends Twitter Blue signups after raft of fake accounts

After it got the Blue tick, it tweeted that insulin is free now.

The fake tweet sent the market into a tizzy impacting the company's market capitalisation. Its shares plunged by over 4 per cent costing over US $15 billion in market cap.

We are sorry that you thought it could be free, not for making insulin crazy expensive pic.twitter.com/b7GVTZd4Kz

— Fake Accounts Hall Of Fame (@FakeAccountsHOF) November 11, 2022

The ruckus in the market prompted the original company to give clarification for its shareholders.

Additionally, The fake tweet also affected the stock prices of Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, the other two manufacturers of insulin, according to a Zee Business report.