Washington: The Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos had his mobile phone “hacked” in 2018 after receiving a WhatsApp message that had apparently been sent from the personal account of the Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, sources have told the Guardian.
However, the kingdom’s US embassy said the stories were “absurd” and called for an investigation into them.
It was previously claimed the alleged hack was linked to the murder of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Mr Bezos being the founder of online retail giant Amazon, also owns the Washington Post.
Mr Bezos’ phone was hacked after receiving a WhatsApp message in May 2018 that was sent from Mohammed bin Salman’s personal account, according to the Guardian newspaper.
The Financial Times reported that an investigation into the data breach found the billionaire’s phone started secretly sharing huge amounts of data after he received an encrypted video file from the prince.
The Twitter account of the kingdom’s US embassy issued an outright denial and called for the claims to be investigated.