US Securities and Exchange Commission scrutinizes Musk tweets about Dogecoin and Bitcoin
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Tesla boss Elon Musk had repeatedly expressed himself positively on Dogecoin and Bitcoin via Twitter – and thus driven the prices. Now the US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Musks’ tweets.
Thanks to his 48 million Twitter followers, Tesla boss Elon Musk can exert a great deal of influence with relatively little effort. This happened, for example, when Musk was thinking out loud on Twitter about the privatization of Tesla in the summer of 2018. The course of the electric car manufacturer then jumped upwards. According to investigations by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk has had to hold back in communication on topics related to finances or takeovers. Now the Tesla boss has come back into the SEC’s sights because of several tweets about cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin or Bitcoin.
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Celebrities like Elon Musk are pushing Dogecoin courses
In the past few weeks, Elon Musk, among others, had pushed the price of the fun currency up significantly with several messages on Twitter in which he more or less clearly pointed to Dogecoin. In addition to Musk, US rapper Snoop Dogg and the bassist of the rock band Kiss, Gene Simmons, also had positive comments about Dogecoin. On February 8th, Dogecoin then hit the previous high of $ 0.085. The Dogecoin was suddenly worth around ten billion dollars. The cryptocurrency is currently trading at $ 0.05 and a market capitalization of just under $ 6.5 billion.
In the case of Bitcoin, too, it seems reasonable to assume that its course was driven – at least temporarily – by the messages Elon Musk distributed via Twitter. In the meantime, Musk had included the word Bitcoin in his bio. After it became known in early February that Tesla had invested $ 1.5 billion in Bitcoin, the Bitcoin price climbed sharply. A few days later, he described Bitcoin as bullshit, but said specifically that Bitcoin was still less stupid than fiat money. Even after this tweet there was a jump in price. A few hours later, Musk declared Bitcoin and Ethereum to be too expensive.
Dogecoin and Bitcoin tweets in the SEC’s sights
For the SEC, which is currently also scrutinizing the events surrounding the Gamestop share and the influence of Reddit traders, the Musk tweets are now going a little too far. Unlike securities, cryptocurrencies are not under the supervision of the SEC. The tweets about Dogecoin could therefore go unpunished, like Golem reported. As for the Bitcoin purchase of the listed electric car manufacturer Tesla, the SEC could still have questions for Elon Musk, as the British newspaper The Telegraph cites a senior SEC investigator writes.
I hope they do! It would be awesome 🤣🤣
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 25, 2021
With the related tweets, Musk could have violated the above-mentioned requirements of the SEC regarding his communication. The Tesla boss once again announced via Twitter how Musk feels about the requirements and the SEC. “I hope you do! That would be great, ”Musk replied to a tweet from a Twitter user about the possible SEC investigation into Musk’s Dogecoin statements.
