Musk’s latest stunt (again) pulls the sprint to Dogecoin
The histrionic Elon Musk, accused of having influenced the value of the Dogecoin, challenges the courts and markets by replacing the bluebird of his social network with the meme of the dog linked to the cryptocurrency
For most, Elon Musk is a child who never grew up and embodies the spirit of the eternal Peter Pan, or eternal startupper, as those who grew up with the myth of Silicon Valley would say. For others, he is an overly self-referential tycoon who can influence the markets with his head shots, we don't know how much deliberately.
Exactly a year ago, while Tesla's owner was filing his offer for Twitter (which he would have bought only after the summer for 44 billion dollars), some investors of the company that chirps had sued him accusing him of having manipulated the market by communicating in delay to the Sec, Securities and Exchange Commission, the equivalent of our Consob, his participation in the social network: a delay – their thesis – which had allowed him to save 156 million dollars.
A few years earlier, when Twitter, as far as we know, was not even in his sights yet but it was still his favorite pastime, the Securities and Exchange Commission had again filed a legal action against him accusing him of having disturbed the market with "false and misleading statements" given that, following a tweet from him on August 7, 2018, there was an 11% surge in coupons on the Stock Exchange. And the stormy story between the South African entrepreneur and the Guarantee Authority is full of similar examples.
DOGECOIN FLIES THANKS TO MUSK
Let's come to the present: in the last few hours the value of Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency which, by admission of its own authors, was born as a game, has risen by more than 30%, going from 0.077 to 10 cents on the dollar. To give her yet another boost (as we will see) a twitter from Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, who on Monday 3 April decided to change the icon of the social network, replacing the blue bird with the symbol of Dogecoin, a meme circulated a lot on the web that depicts a Shiba dog.
BEHIND IT ALL JUST A BET?
As often happens with the South African entrepreneur, the idea would have arisen from an exchange between him and the user @WSBChairman, which took place a year ago, in which the illustrious stranger asked the former startupper to buy Twitter and then change its logo using Dogecoin. Elon Musk re-shared that conversation, adding, "As promised."
As promised pic.twitter.com/Jc1TnAqxAV
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2023
If every promise is a debt, fulfilling those made by Musk even generates credits. And the renewed value of this intangible asset is proof of this. For a long time the meme-coin, which will soon turn 10, was in fact waste paper, but since January 2021, thanks to various endorsements by Elon Musk, its value in current currency has gained weight, reaching in May that year the all-time high at 64 cents. So much so that Musk was eventually taken to court , where a judge will have to decide if he bears any liability whatsoever.
Perhaps yesterday Musk just wanted to demonstrate, once again, that he is the landlord of the social network and that he can do whatever he wants, perhaps he wanted to challenge laws and magistrates again, he has certainly once again given rise to the accusations of those who claim that with his interventions , rude or studied that they are, is able to decree the fate of listed securities and cryptocurrencies.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/elon-musk-twitter-simbolo-dogecoin/ on Tue, 04 Apr 2023 08:11:51 +0000.