Elon Musk Says Dogecoin Tweets Are Jokes, He Is a ‘Supporter’ of Bitcoin

Elon Musk says his social media posts about meme cryptocurrency dogecoin are “just meant to be jokes” and his true allegiance lies elsewhere.

The Tesla and SpaceX boss admitted in an interview on the Clubhouse app on Sunday night he is an advocate of bitcoin, just days after changing his Twitter bio to promote that cryptocurrency in a move that boosted its value by up to 20 percent.

Previously, the billionaire CEO’s favourite crypto was never clear, but he had repeatedly appeared to endorse dogecoin—launched in 2013 using branding of a Shiba Inu dog from a then-popular internet meme—to his millions of Twitter followers.

Last Thursday, dogecoin’s price surged amid a wider stock market frenzy and Musk tweeted an image of a magazine titled “Dogue” that was viewed as support from the coin’s community. From a high of $0.077, it has since fallen to around $0.040.

In December last year, dogecoin’s price spiked by around 20 percent after Musk said in a tweet: “One word: Doge.” Last July, he wrote that its success was “inevitable.”

But Musk conceded in the Clubhouse interview that he doesn’t have a strong opinion about tokens outside of bitcoin, the world’s dominant crypto. “Occasionally I make jokes about dogecoin, but they are really just meant to be jokes,” he said.

Musk said dogecoin was “made as a joke to make fun of cryptocurrencies” but noted “fate loves irony.” He added: “Arguably the most entertaining outcome and the most ironic outcome would be dogecoin becomes the currency of earth in the future.”

Musk acknowledged that he was “late to the party” in voicing support for bitcoin after being introduced to the digital money by a friend back in 2013.

He said: “I was a little slow on the uptake there. I had to think about it for a bit but I do think bitcoin is a good thing. I am a supporter of bitcoin, and I think bitcoin is really on the verge of getting broad acceptance by conventional finance people.”

After Musk changed his Twitter bio to read #bitcoin last week, the price of the crypto surged from around $32,000 to $37,000. It’s currently listed at around $33,710.

The CEO waded into the U.S. stock market discourse multiple times last week as users of a subreddit called r/WallStreetBets were funneling money into companies including GameStop, AMC and Nokia in order to disrupt U.S. hedge fund short sellers.

Later, members of the subreddits r/dogecoin and r/SatoshiStreetBets tried to hype up the dogecoin cryptocurrency to force its value up to $1, which ultimately failed. Last Tuesday, Musk tweeted a link to r/WallStreetBets alongside the caption “Gamestonk!!” GameStop stock later rose by approximately 50 percent in extended trading.