The true Twitter logo, which is back now, via Twitter
A few days ago, Twitter, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, changed its logo. The normal blue bird became a drawing of “Doge.” Doge is a dog from a meme, and the mascot for Dogecoin. Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency Elon Musk has expressed favor of before. His tweets have caused dramatic swings in the value of cryptocurrency, an unregulated digital form of currency. People buy and sell these digital currencies for real money. Dogecoin is cheap. While a single Bitcoin may cost tens of thousands of dollars, a single Dogecoin is under a dollar. In fact, it has never reached the value of a single dollar, rarely breaking over one penny. Still, Musk’s advocacy of the cryptocurrency has, in the past, boosted its value. By changing Twitter’s logo to a Doge, Musk caused a gigantic jump in Dogecoin’s value.
Is Musk using Twitter to pump and dump the digital currency for huge profits?
Musk is no stranger to fluctuating Dogecoin prices. In 2019, he mentioned it on Twitter, causing a 16% spike. Then, in 2021, he called it a “hustle” on Saturday Night Live, causing a roughly 33% drop. But when Twitter changed its logo to a Doge, the value jumped up over a penny, the highest it’s been in 2023, a 30% jump.
The SEC settled with Elon Musk over Tesla stock price fluctuations and his tweets before. He’s now the target of a massive racketeering lawsuit for allegedly causing Doge to spike erratically so he can “pump and dump,” that is, inflate the price of something, like a Dogecoin, and then sell it at its peak. Clearly Musk doesn’t think much of the lawsuit. Given his history with the SEC and this lawsuit, could Elon have known what accusations would come at him next?
Does he have to care?
“no high, no lows, only Doge”
That’s a quote from Musk over Twitter. This wouldn’t be the first time Musk has drawn attention to Doge, and he seemingly has reveled in the change his tweets could bring to the coin’s price before. With the lawsuit against him, he assuredly knew that, by changing the Twitter logo to a Doge, he’d bring accusations that he did it to pump and dump the cryptocurrency. So why do it?
Maybe he just really needed some more liquid funding.
That should come off as a joke, and it is. Musk is lauded as the richest man in the world. Still, he couldn’t come up with the $44 billion to buy Twitter. That came mostly from equity firms and banks. Loans. If you have the money, not using it to increase your money is a wise decision. But, kidding aside, could Musk be strapped for cash? It’s highly unlikely, but the rich don’t stay rich by refusing to leverage what they already have. Musk has influence, it would be tempting not to use it. The SEC certainly thought so. Still, this could very likely be Musk trolling, mocking the lawsuit. Still, with the wild fluctuations in value, he may have given some credibility to it.
Is Musk pumping and dumping Dogecoin? Only Musk knows. The rest of us only can speculate. But, isn’t it a bit troubling that he could cause such wild fluctuations in a currency with only the change of a single logo?
Sources:
- Ayana Archie, NPR News
- Billy Banbrough, Forbes
- Jonathan Stempel, Reuters
- Reuters: Breaking Views
- Alex Wilhelm, TechCrunch