Elon Musk replaces Twitter’s bird icon with the animated Dogecoin mascot, days after a judge called out a $258 billion extortion lawsuit accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency.
- It comes as Musk’s lawyers asserted that the controversial CEO had not tweeted anything ‘illegal’.
- Dogecoin investors accused Musk of running a pyramid scheme
Twitter’s blue bird symbol logo was replaced yesterday morning with an image of a Shiba Inu, a reference to Dogecoin, the fictitious cryptocurrency that CEO Elon Musk is being sued over.
The controversial social media chief, who bought Twitter last year in a $44 billion deal, spoke about the change Monday afternoon, tweeting a photo of a year-old conversation in which another user suggested to Musk “just buy Twitter” and “change the bird logo to Doge.
Just two days later, the joke’s new logo appeared on the site shortly after Musk asked a judge to dismiss a $258 billion extortion lawsuit accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to support Dogecoin.
It is not yet clear whether the change of the logo is serious and permanent, or if it is just a sarcastic tactic.
Lawyers for Musk and Tesla called the lawsuit brought by the Dogecoin investors a “work of imaginary fiction” due to the CEO’s “harmless and often ridiculous tweets.”
The blue bird symbol logo was replaced on Twitter yesterday morning with an image of a Shiba Inu, a reference to Dogecoin
Representations of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency are shown in this illustration
Attorneys said investors never explained how Musk intended to defraud anyone or the risks he hid, and that his statements like “Dogecoin rulz” and “there are no highs, no lows, just Doge” were too vague to support the fraud claim.
“There is nothing illegal in tweeting words of support or funny pictures about a legitimate cryptocurrency that still holds a market cap of nearly $10 billion,” Musk’s lawyers said. “This court should put an end to the plaintiffs’ imagination and dismiss the complaint.”
In a footnote, the lawyers also rejected the investors’ claim that Dogecoin qualifies as collateral.
“We are more confident than ever that our case will succeed,” the investors’ attorney, Evan Spencer, said in an email.
Investors accused Musk, the second richest person in the world according to Forbes, of deliberately raising the price of Dogecoin by 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
This, they said, netted billions of dollars in profits at the expense of other Dogecoin investors, even when Musk knew the coin lacked intrinsic value.
Investors also pointed out Musk’s appearance on NBC’s “Weekend Update” segment where he portrayed a fictitious financial expert, calling Dogecoin a “rant.”
The damages figure of $258 billion is three times the estimated drop in Dogecoin’s market value in the 13 months before the lawsuit was filed.
The Dogecoin Foundation, a nonprofit, is also a defendant and is seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed.
Musk’s Twitter posts, which he owns, have sparked multiple lawsuits.
He won a court victory on Feb. 3 when a San Francisco jury found him not liable for his August 2018 tweet that he had arranged financing to take Tesla private.
The normally volatile Dogecoin is up more than 20% in the past 24 hours to nearly 9 cents.
On Monday morning, it was trading just under 8 cents.
Dogecoin was created in 2013 as a joke by a pair of software engineers.
The name is a reference to the “doge” meme that became popular a decade ago.
