Amid $258 Billion Lawsuit, Elon Musk Continues Voicing Support For Dogecoin

Is it any surprise that Elon Musk would keep letting the word “Dogecoin” escape his lips in the days after being named a defendant in a $258 billion lawsuit focused on his support for the meme coin?

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has vocalized his support for the cryptocurrency multiple times since Dogecoin investor Keith Johnson sued him and his companies alleging that Musk operated a “Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme.” In online and in-person comments, Musk stated his continued championing of Dogecoin while claiming that he “never said people should invest in crypto.”

Musk’s first public Dogecoin-related comment after the lawsuit’s filing on Thursday came Saturday, tweeting, “I will keep supporting Dogecoin.” He later responded to another Twitter user’s reply that he “keep buying it” with “I am.”

One of the major claims of Johnson’s complaint is that Musk used “his pedestal as World’s Richest Man to operate and manipulate” Dogecoin’s value since first tweeting about the coin in April 2019. His tweets in support of Dogecoin have proven to coincide with sizable bumps in the coin’s value over that time, and Saturday’s tweet was no different. Dogecoin’s value jumped nearly 12% in the hours after Musk’s tweet.

The coin’s value continued to climb as Musk again voiced support for Dogecoin during a virtual appearance at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday, couching his pumping of the coin as a response from “people who are not that wealthy” encouraging him to “buy and support Dogecoin.”

“When I walk around the factory at SpaceX or Tesla, they’ve asked me to support Dogecoin, so I’m doing so,” Musk added during the interview with Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait. When pushed on if his support of Dogecoin equated to Musk believing there was value in the coin after its 90% drop in value over the last 13 months, Musk simply reiterated, “I said I support Dogecoin, and I’m doing that.”

Dogecoin’s current value now sits at $0.067, nearly two cents higher than the coin’s value hours before Musk’s tweet Saturday. It isn’t a large jump in the grand scheme; the coin’s value still sits incredibly low compared to where it was just one month ago. But it does show that Dogecoin is actually gaining value as major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Etherium continue to see their value drop and the self-described definitely-not-a-bank crypto bank Celsius halts transactions.

Musk’s pro-Dogecoin comments line up with the coin’s line going up, which again gives some credence to the claims made in Johnson’s lawsuit. It remains to be seen if the lawsuit will bore any results, but Musk continues to give at least tacit evidence that his whims have some influence over Dogecoin’s market.

It’s the same reason why quote tweets and replies to Musk’s Saturday tweet are inundated with other crypto projects trying their damndest to get any level of attention from “The Dogefather,” or why Elon Goat Token (which inexplicably was featured on Fox Business last month) even exists. Musk’s endorsement, even when tepid, means potentially millions in the crypto space because of the hero-worship of him within the space. Musk may not have ever uttered the phrase “invest in crypto,” but he never had to.