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Elon Musk Replaces Twitter Bird Logo With Doge Meme

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Robert McGreevy Contributor
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Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Monday changed the logo of the social media platform’s desktop site from its usual blue bird to the Shiba Inu image known as the Doge meme, which itself has come to represent the cryptocurrency Dogecoin.

The digital asset, started as a joke in 2016 according to the coin’s co-creator Billy Markus, jumped over 30 percent after the Twitter logo was changed, according to CNBC.

By way of explanation, Musk tweeted out a photo of a March 2022 exchange he had with Twitter user @WSBChairman, indicating the move was to fulfill a year-old promise to buy Twitter and change its logo to Doge. (RELATED: 6 Democrats That Are Actually Doge)

The cosmetic change and a barrage of Doge memes from Elon Musk’s account, coupled with the sharp rise in Dogecoin’s value, are reminiscent of prior instances in which Musk mentioned or joked about the memecoin in public, causing its value to shoot up. On Friday, Musk asked a judge to dismiss a $258 billion lawsuit against him that accuses him of racketeering and calls Dogecoin a “pyramid scheme,” according to Reuters.

The complaint in Johnson vs. Musk, et al. is a class action suit being heard in the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs, all Dogecoin investors, allege Musk intentionally inflated the price of Dogecoin over 36,000 percent over two years and then let it crash intentionally, Reuters reports.

Musk’s lawyers insist his tweets were too vague to support a fraud claim and that the plaintiffs haven’t shown that Musk was trying to defraud anyone. They filed a motion to dismiss on Friday, calling the suit “a fanciful work of fiction,” according to Gizmodo.

Elon’s history with Doge is a long and influential one. His regular mentions of Doge on Twitter have sent the coin’s value skyrocketing and his appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” during which he mentioned the cryptocurrency, prompted many to refer to him as the ‘Dogefather.’

Musk has indicated in the past that both his and Tesla’s official balance sheets hold Dogecoin to some degree. Tesla even announced in January 2022 that it would start accepting Dogecoin as payment for some merchandise, according to BBC.

Dogecoin was created in 2013 as a joke, but what started as a joke is now the eighth largest cryptocurrency in the world with a $13 billion market cap, according to Coinmarketcap.com. Co-creator Billy Markus, who also goes by Shibetoshi Nakumoto, told DailyCoin.com that Dogecoin was “an intentionally stupid joke” and “proof that people will speculate on anything.”