Elon Musk replaces Twitter bird logo for dogecoin’s shiba inu
Entrepreneur once joked on ‘Saturday Night Live’ that coin was ‘a hustle’
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The price of the dogecoin cryptocurrency shot up more than 30 per cent after Elon Musk replaced Twitter’s bird symbol with one of the coin’s shiba inu dog.
The move by the billionaire came after his lawyers on Friday asked a federal judge to throw out a $258bn lawsuit accusing the entrepreneur of manipulating dogecoin’s price and driving it up by 36,000 per cent.
Following the change to the Twitter logo Mr Musk shared a meme about it on his own Twitter account, which has more than 133 million followers.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2023
Mr Musk has repeatedly tweeted about the cryptocurrency, which was first started as a joke coin in 2013, and most of his comments about it have moved its price.
Dogecoin is the eighth most valuable cryptocurrency with a market cap of around $13bn according to CoinMarketCap.com.
In court filings for the lawsuit, which was filed against Mr Musk in 2022, his lawyers stated that his comments on dogecoin were “innocuous and often silly.”
The lawsuit names Twitter, Tesla and the Boring Company in the lawsuit.
In 2021 the value of dogecoin dropped after Elon Musk mentioned it during a hosting appearance on Saturday Night Live.
During his monologue, his mother, Maye Musk, made an appearance to ask him what he had got her for Mother’s Day.
“I’m excited for my Mother’s Day gift,” Maye Musk said. “I just hope it’s not dogecoin!”
“It is,” Elon Musk said. “It sure is.”
And during the Weekend Update segment, he appeared as a character who could not explain what dogecoin actually was, before admitting it was just “a hustle.”
In December 2021, Mr Musk announced that Tesla would start accepting dogecoin for some merchandise, with the price rising by 20 per cent.
In January 2022 when he tweeted that dogecoin payments were live its price increased by 15 per cent.
The Independent reached out to Twitter for comment and received back an automatic email with the poop emoji as Mr Musk has promised for all press requests.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments