Elon Musk and DOGE
Today, there seems to be a clear connection between Dogecoin
DOGEUSD
, a prominent meme coin, and billionaire Elon Musk's social media activity. Earlier, Doge briefly began to decline until he posted a meme focused on Doge.
This meme directly referenced Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.), but the coin's value rose nonetheless.
DOGE’s price surge proved short-lived, but it was still a notable correlation. An obvious question arises: Was Musk intentionally trying to boost DOGE?
On several recent occasions, the meme coin has surged in value following Musk’s social media posts. In September, he explicitly posted about D.O.G.E., which also boosted the uncorrelated crypto asset.
Ultimately, it is impossible to definitively understand Musk’s intentions with his post. All of Musk’s recent statements regarding Dogecoin have referred to the political project, not the crypto asset. If he was trying to boost the meme coin’s value, he was not very successful: the growth stopped and fell again within hours.
However, there is a plausible alternative explanation for this behavior. Last week, Dogecoin investors dropped a class-action lawsuit against Elon Musk over this very issue. These investors accused Musk of intentionally manipulating the price of Dogecoin since 2021, charging him with fraud and insider trading.
“Elon Musk literally named a government department ‘Doge’ so he could post about it again whenever he wanted, without getting in trouble,” the X account ‘Sir Doge of the Coin’ said.
Musk is a documented meme lover and may have an appreciation for Doge independent of origin or agency. After all, the original meme has been around since 2013 and could exist outside of either of those contexts.
However, if Musk is accused of criminally manipulating Dogecoin prices through his posts, the name D.O.G.E. could be an easy fix. By naming the agency this way, Musk would have plausible deniability that he is not talking about the cryptocurrency at all. Whether or not Musk is referring to DOGE traders, there is no way to conclusively determine his actual intent.
