There’s a good chance Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and venture capitalist Peter Thiel are having their phones examined right about now, in the wake of new reports about the hacking of Jeff Bezos’ phone.
A forensic analysis commissioned by Bezos suggests that it’s likely his phone was hacked in May 2018 via a file sent from a WhatsApp account used by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to reports in The Guardian and the Financial Times.
The hacking attack came just weeks after Bezos, the CEO of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post, met in person with bin Salman during the latter’s tour of Silicon Valley and the US. The two swapped phone numbers during a dinner meeting and later connected via WhatsApp.
But Bezos wasn’t the only tech luminary or celebrity who met with bin Salman on his three-week tour. So too did Cook, Page, Brin, Thiel and plenty of others. There is no evidence that their phones were also compromised, but given the stunning allegations about how Bezos’ phone was hacked, it’s not unreasonable to wonder whether others may have swapped phone numbers with the crown prince and could be at risk.
The Saudi US embassy called the allegations of hacking “absurd” in a tweet on Tuesday.
Here are some of the tech executives and other notable figures who met with the Saudi crown prince on his 2018 trip, according to The New York Times:
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