Elon Musk, Tesla CEO and the boss of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (playfully abbreviated as D.O.G.E. to honor Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency) has published a tweet featuring the Kekius Maximus character based on the Pepe the Frog meme.
Musk has done that for the first time in four months and quickly triggered the reaction of the crypto community, in particular those who support the PEPE meme coin. The publication of the tweet on Wednesday night coincided with the meme asset’s significant price jump.
Musk published an image of the meme character derived from Pepe the Frog, which he first published in late December 2024, briefly changing his X account name from Elon Musk to Kekius Maximus then. Back then, Maximus (which is likely a reference to the iconic Ridley Scott movie released in 2000 and then its sequel in late 2024) was dressed like a Roman general.
This time, the meme character’s appearance has changed radically. It is now dressed like popular comics character Captain America, sitting on a sofa and playing a video game. In the background, the wall carries an image of a rocket flying to space, which is likely a reference to Musk’s SpaceX company and to a popular bullish crypto meme, “to the moon.”
Despite his love for Dogecoin, Elon Musk recently stated that the U.S. government has no plans to use DOGE or any other cryptocurrency, at least for the time being.
The crypto community responded to Musk’s Pepe tweet with a wave of enthusiasm, posting other Pepe images in the comments. Some depicted Pepe as U.S. President Donald Trump, celebrating the revival of the crypto market. The latter followed the bullish reverse of the stock market as Trump has implemented a 90-day pause for his recently announced trade tariffs.
Still, he has increased tariffs against Chinese goods by a total of more than 100% in response to China’s refusal to discard the 34% on tariff on American goods. Bitcoin surged by nearly 10% on Wednesday, surpassing $83,000, but it has rebounded by now, changing hands at $81,680.
The meme cryptocurrency Pepe is trading at $0.000056714 after rising by 7% over the past 24 hours.
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