A high school principal in Florida has resigned after attempting to send $100,000 from the school’s account to a person claiming online to be Twitter CEO Elon Musk.
Principal Jan McGee of the Burns Science and Technology Charter in Oak Hill, Florida, acknowledged at a school board meeting Tuesday that she cut the check.
“I am a very smart lady. Well-educated. I fell for a scam,” McGee said in a speech live-streamed on Facebook.
She claimed to have been “groomed” by the scammer for the past four months. “Grooming is when you talk to somebody and you believe in them, and they get you to trust them that this is really real, and so I fell for it,” she said.
McGee said the person she believed to be Musk had pledged to match the funds, and would reciprocate by donating several million dollars to the school.
According to NBC affiliate WFLA, other school board administrators repeatedly told McGee she was interacting with a scammer, and not with one of the richest men in the world.
When the person instructed her to make out the check to someone other than Musk himself, she proceeded, believing she was sending the money to Musk’s “right hand man.”
The school’s business manager, Brent Appy, canceled the check before it cleared.