Did you hear or see that LeBron James officially asked the Los Angeles Lakers to trade him?

It’s at least somewhat understandable, given that they missed the play-in tournament last season and have started 2-8 this season.

Oh, wait. It wasn’t actually him.

A Twitter user attempting to masquerade itself as James’ official account posted a tweet claiming the four-time MVP had requested a trade, and for a minute, the social media universe was in an uproar.

But once it was established that the tweet didn’t come from James himself, everyone settled down, other than that embarrassing feeling of being duped by a fake account.

Via Sportsnaut:

There has been an epidemic of fake accounts purporting to be those of celebrities in recent days, ever since billionaire Elon Musk purchased Twitter and announced some changes in how the company would verify accounts.

Such fake accounts, including the one that was responsible for the tweet above, have been suspended.

Musk himself was impersonated by comedian Kathy Griffin, and her account was quickly suspended by the real Musk.

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Story originally appeared on LeBron Wire