Elon Musk replaces Twitter’s bird icon with Dogecoin’s cartoon mascot days after he asked judge to throw out $258BN racketeering lawsuit accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency
- It comes as Musk’s lawyers maintained the controversial CEO has not tweeted anything ‘unlawful’
- Musk was accused by Dogecoin investors of running a pyramid scheme
Twitter’s blue bird icon logo was replaced yesterday morning with an image of a Shiba Inu, a nod to Dogecoin, the mock cryptocurrency that CEO Elon Musk is being sued over.
The controversial social media boss, who bought Twitter last year in a $44 billion deal addressed the change on Monday afternoon, Tweeting an image of a year-old conversation in which another user suggested Musk ‘just buy Twitter’ and ‘change the bird logo to a doge’.
Only two days later, and the new joke logo appeared on the site shortly after Musk asked a judge to throw out a $258 billion racketeering lawsuit accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to support the dogecoin.
It is unclear as of yet whether or not the logo change was serious and permanent, or merely satirical.
Musk and Tesla lawyers called the lawsuit by investors of Dogecoin a ‘fanciful work of fiction’ over the CEO’s ‘innocuous and often silly Tweets.’
Twitter’s blue bird icon logo was replaced yesterday morning with an image of a Shiba Inu, a nod to Dogecoin
Representations of cryptocurrency Dogecoin are seen in this illustration
The lawyers said the investors never explained how Musk intended to defraud anyone or what risks he concealed, and that his statements such as ‘Dogecoin Rulz’ and ‘no highs, no lows, only Doge’ were too vague to support a fraud claim.
‘There is nothing unlawful about tweeting words of support for, or funny pictures about, a legitimate cryptocurrency that continues to hold a market cap of nearly $10 billion,’ Musk’s lawyers said. ‘This court should put a stop to plaintiffs’ fantasy and dismiss the complaint.’
In a footnote, the lawyers also rejected the investors’ claim that Dogecoin qualified as a security.
The investors’ lawyer, Evan Spencer, said in an email: ‘We are more confident than ever that our case will be successful.’
Investors accused Musk, the world’s second-richest person according to Forbes, of deliberately driving up Dogecoin’s price more than 36,000% over two years and then letting it crash.
The controversial social media boss bought Twitter last year in a $44 billion deal
They said this generated billions of dollars of profit at other Dogecoin investors’ expense, even as Musk knew the currency lacked intrinsic value.
Investors also pointed to Musk’s appearance on a ‘Weekend Update’ segment of NBC’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ where, portraying a fictitious financial expert, he called Dogecoin ‘a hustle.’
The $258 billion damages figure is triple the estimated decline in Dogecoin’s market value in the 13 months before the lawsuit was filed.
Dogecoin Foundation, a nonprofit, is also a defendant and seeking the lawsuit’s dismissal.
Musk’s posts on Twitter, which he owns, have prompted multiple lawsuits.
He won a court victory on Feb. 3 when a San Francisco jury found him not liable for tweeting in August 2018 that he had arranged financing to take Tesla private.
The typically volatile Dogecoin shot up over 20% over the past 24 hours to roughly 9 cents.
On Monday morning, it had been trading just under 8 cents.
Dogecoin was created in 2013 as a joke by a pair of software engineers.
The name is a nod to the ‘doge’ meme that became popular a decade ago.
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