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Elon Musk replaces Twitter’s bird icon with Dogecoin’s cartoon mascot, days after asking the judge to throw out a $258 billion racketeering lawsuit accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to prop up the cryptocurrency
- It comes as Musk’s lawyers claimed the controversial CEO didn’t tweet anything “illegitimate.”
- Musk was accused by Dogecoin investors of running a pyramid scheme
Twitter’s blue bird icon was replaced yesterday morning with an image of a Shiba Inu, a nod to Dogecoin, the fake cryptocurrency CEO Elon Musk is being sued for.
The controversial social media boss, who bought Twitter last year in a $44 billion deal, addressed the change Monday afternoon by tweeting an image from a year-old conversation in which another user suggested Musk “just buy Twitter” and ” change the bird logo to a doge’.
Just two days later, the new joke logo appeared on the site, shortly after Musk asked a judge to drop a $258 billion racketeering case accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to support the dogecoin.
It’s unclear so far whether or not the logo change was serious and permanent, or merely satirical.
Attorneys for Musk and Tesla called the lawsuit by investors of Dogecoin a “fantasy fiction” due to the CEO’s “innocent 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
In this illustration, representations of cryptocurrency Dogecoin can be seen
The lawyers said the investors never explained how Musk intended to scam anyone or what risks he was hiding, and that his statements such as “Dogecoin Rulz” and “no highs, no lows, just Doge” were too vague to warrant a . to support a fraud claim.
“There is nothing illegal about tweeting messages of support or funny pictures about a legit cryptocurrency that still has a market cap of nearly $10 billion,” Musk’s lawyers said. “This court must put an end to plaintiffs’ fantasy and dismiss the complaint.”
In a footnote, the lawyers also rejected the investors’ claim that Dogecoin qualified as a security.
Investors’ attorney 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 inflating the price of Dogecoin by more than 36,000% over two years and then crashing it.
The controversial social media boss bought Twitter last year in a $44 billion deal
They said this generated billions of dollars in profit at the expense of other Dogecoin investors, even when Musk knew the currency had no intrinsic value.
Investors also pointed to Musk’s appearance on a “Weekend Update” segment of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” where he, portraying a fictional financial expert, called Dogecoin “a hustle.”
The $258 billion damage amount is three times the estimated drop in Dogecoin’s market value in the 13 months before the lawsuit was filed.
Dogecoin Foundation, a non-profit organization, is also a defendant and is seeking dismissal from the lawsuit.
Musk’s posts on Twitter, which he owns, have led to 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 funding to take Tesla private.
The typically volatile Dogecoin shot up more than 20% in the past 24 hours to about 9 cents.
Monday morning it was trading just below 8 cents.
Dogecoin was created in 2013 as a joke by a few software engineers.
The name is a nod to the “doge” meme that became popular a decade ago.