Crypto scammers hijack Skip Bayless’ X to promote SKIP and back Trump

American TV personality and sports commentator Skip Bayless became the latest victim of crypto scammers who compromised his X account to promote a Solana-based token called SKIP.

Shortly after gaining control of the former ESPN commentator’s account, the attacker posted politically motivated messages endorsing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump while promoting the SKIP token alongside taglines like “Let’s make crypto great again” and “crypto will thrive with Trump.”

According to data from DEX Screener, the hacker began dumping tokens immediately after a post appeared on Bayless’s account featuring a cartoon image of him standing beside the Solana logo, along with the token’s contract address.

Hacker’s post on Bayless’ X account | Source: X

However, the scheme yielded limited returns, with the attacker managing to secure just $8,200. The token did manage to reach a market cap of over $69,000, earning a listing on Raydium, but has since fallen to just over $4,100 at press time, while the token was down over 94%.

Some of the hacker’s latest posts also targeted Vice President Kamala Harris and basketball star LeBron James, with derogatory language. When writing, these posts are still visible to Bayless’ over 3.2 million X followers.

The TV personality joins a long list of celebrities who have had their X accounts comprised this year to promote similar schemes. On November 4, rapper Wiz Khalifa’s account promoted the WIZ token pushing its price up over 2,000% just minutes after launch, before crashing.

In June, Rapper 50 Cent was hacked after which the attackers pumped the GUNIT token which allowed them to make over $300 million in just 30 minutes. During the same month, hackers attacked Metallica and hijacked their account, making false claims about a partnership with MoonPay, while advertising the unaffiliated METAL token.