Elon Musk accidentally posted his personal phone number to his 16.7 million Twitter followers

WHEN you are as high-profile as Elon Musk, the last thing you want to be doing is accidentally posting your personal phone number for the whole world to see.

WHEN YOU have 16.7 million Twitter followers, you probably don’t want to be tweeting your personal phone number for all of the world to see.

Unfortunately, this is what Tesla founder Elon Musk did when communicating with John Carmack, the chief technology officer of virtual-reality company Oculus.

“Do you have a sec to talk? My cell is ...” Musk wrote from his account, before quickly deleting the post.

PHOTO: Elon Musk appears to accidentally tweet his cell phone number (Bloomberg) pic.twitter.com/7a20LHkvdB

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It appears Musk was quick enough to ensure he wouldn’t receive thousands of phone calls from the general public, with the number now going to an audio clip from the video game God Of War.

“By the gods you’ve done it,” it says. “Somehow you’ve found your way here to me. I offer you my congratulations and my respect.”

The cryptic video game reference is interesting given Oculus, which was acquired by Facebook for $2.6 billion in 2014, has strong links with the gaming community.

As virtual and augmented reality are playing significant roles in the development of autonomous cars, it is also highly possible this could have been Musk’s reasoning for wanting to talk to Carmack.

There’s also the fact that before working for Oculus, Carmack built a company that hoped to make a craft for suborbital space tourism.

The company was shut down in 2013 after Carmack spent millions trying to get it off the ground.

Despite the closure, he has shown a strong interest in the space sector and has previously interacted with Musk over Twitter.

In January 2015, Musk tweeted photos of a SpaceX drone-landing ship to Carmack, suggesting he wanted the programmer back in aerospace technology.

A Facebook spokeswoman dispelled suggestions Musk was trying to recruit Carmack by saying he doesn’t plan to leave the company, reported Bloomberg.