A Real-Life Survivability Story of ***** Greed | Eli-Lilly Pharmaceuticals Loses USD 15 billion after Fake Twitter Account ‘insulin is free’ Tweet.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s changes to social media giant Twitter are already costing some companies, investors and ordinary people tens of billions of dollars.
Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly (LLY) dipped 4.37 per cent Friday to US $352.30 — erasing over US $15 billion in market cap — after a Twitter Blue verified account impersonating the brand promised free insulin.
The tweet, sent around 1:30 p.m. Thursday, read: “We are excited to announce insulin is free now.” The post remained online for hours, attracting over 3,000 likes and hundreds of retweets.
It is highly likely that the twitter impersonator(s) responsible are activists who wanted to expose Eli Lilly for breaking laws and gauging customers over decades. In one case back in 2009, Lilly was fined $1.4 billion in the Zyprexa case but found a way to negotiate with regulators It is worth noting an out of court settlement.
It is wrth noting that the three people who discovered insulin, a life-saving drug, originally sold their patents to the University of Toronto for $1 each. One of the team members, Sir Frederick G. Banting, remarked: “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.”
Click on image to see “Survivability” on Amazon.
“Banting selling his rights to the University of Toronto for one dollar was a noble act – it was his gift to humanity. His gift and ethos got hijacked by the pure capitalist greed of profitability at any cost, and without any ‘Social Responsibility’ requirement.
This untamed greed caused the world the 2008 financial crisis of 2008, and many other global disasters.
I address these and many other critical issues in great depth and detail in my recent International Best-Selling Book “Survivability“.
Khaled Fattal, Survivability News Publisher
As of Friday, the impostor account @EliLillyandCo is no longer verified, its tweets have been set to private.
The official Eli Lilly account responded Thursday afternoon with an apology, confirming that “Our official Twitter account is @LillyPad.”
The company joins the scores of other blue check marks plagued by parody accounts after Musk announced a new policy allowing anyone to buy “verification” for $8 a month. Pranksters impersonating celebrities, brands and even Musk himself have flooded the site with unflattering messages since the update launched Wednesday.
In response, Musk has reportedly suspended Twitter Blue sign-ups as of Friday afternoon, less than 48 hours after the launch. The move was to “help address impersonation issues,” according to an internal memo obtained by Zoë Schiffer of Platformer.
Confused users can tell who was verified before Twitter Blue and who paid $8 for the privilege by clicking on the checkmark in people’s profiles. Musk also confirmed the rollout of “official” badges for notable companies and other entities — a grey badge found under the user’s name.
Eli Lilly, along with drugmakers Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, currently dominate the insulin market. Together, they account for the entire insulin supply in the U.S. and 90 per cent worldwide.
