Tesla and Space X boss Elon Musk seems ready for another legal bout with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after he tweeted it would be nice if he was under investigation for his role in DOGE’s surge.
First Squawk Squawks the SEC Out
The enigmatic billionaire is known for his indifference and light-hearted reactions to things that could be potentially damaging.
In response to rumors first published by audio-based financial newswire First Squawk that the SEC may be visiting Musk soon for promoting meme-based Dogecoin, Elon said he would be thrilled.
SEC IS SAID TO INVESTIGATE TESLA CHIEF EXECUTIVE MUSK FOR HIS TWEETS ON DOGECOIN: SOURCES FAMILIAR WITH THE MATTER #Dogecoins #Tesla
— First Squawk (@FirstSquawk) February 25, 2021
Musk had earlier said he does not see eye-to-eye with the SEC after the regulatory body slapped him with market manipulation charges back in 2018.
He had to cough out $40 million to get the agency off his back. Following the encounter, the SEC has been monitoring his social media activities.
The SEC does not consider Dogecoin as a security and this may be the reason Musk has not been called to order.
But Ripple Labs’ XRP token is not getting the same treatment. The SEC had categorized XRP as a “security” despite claims to the contrary by its founders.
The injunction issued by the regulatory body to Ripple and current CEO Brad Garlinghouse has seen the payment processing company losing a large share of its customers.
A Twitter user brilliantly pointed out that Musk may escape this onslaught as he’s not intrinsically tied to the meme-based crypto project as Garlinghouse is to XRP and so the SEC may disregard his flippant promotion of the digital asset.
But if the SEC decides to look into his DOGE campaign, Musk may have no place left to hide as he has been seriously plowing attention for the Shiba Inu.
At one point, he called himself the CEO of Dogecoin and even went as far as uploading a photoshopped picture of him holding up the DOGE mascot on a mountain top- an idea borrowed from Disney’s Lion King.
He proudly announced that he recently acquired DOGE for his nine-month-old son on Twitter and has been propagating the idea of Dogecoin becoming an interplanetary asset in his Teslarati circles.
But following these rumors, Musk himself seems unfazed. Coming online and seeing the report, he uploaded a picture of the Shiba Inu as an astronaut.
Literally pic.twitter.com/XBAUqiVsPH
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 24, 2021
It is not entirely clear if the rumors are true or if it is just an attempt to further manipulate the markets. But this has not really helped the embattled cryptocurrency as it fell by 5.7% in the last 24hrs.
Before DOGE There Was BTC
Dogecoin is not the only digital asset, Musk has been touting. Before moving to the Shiba Inu, Bitcoin was the center of his attraction.
His Twitter profile update of Bitcoin saw the prime crypto-asset rise by an ear-splitting 8.5% in less than an hour. At one point, his continued tweets saw BTC rally beyond the low $30k and reach a new ATH of $42,000.
News of Tesla’s $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin propelled the digital asset to rise to an enviable record of $58,000 although major market corrections have seen it drop to $50,000.
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