Forbes’ richest person in the world Elon Musk has taken his meme lord status to the next level, after changing his profile picture on his newly-acquired Twitter to a collage of Bored Apes. To entertain even further, as well as to add to the extensive history in which the Tesla CEO has with the crypto Twitter community (which has predominantly came through trolling people and sharing memes that have pumped the price of Dogecoin), Musk’s picture change was swiftly followed by him tweeting ‘I dunno … seems kinda fungible’.
I dunno … seems kinda fungible
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 4, 2022
The image Musk used is in fact a promotional collage created for Sotheby’s auction of 101 Bored Apes back in September, which features the notorious, gold-furred Bored Ape #5809 as its centrepiece. As this infers, Musk doesn’t actually own the Apes in the image, which has led to the BAYC community saying they’ve been ‘right click saved,’ and the Vice President of Sotheby’s Michael Bouhanna to lightheartedly ask Musk to either remove the image, or to add credit.
@elonmusk as much I admire your work I’d like you to remove your pfp that I created for our Sotheby’s sale. Or you credit me ????. Happy to send you the original file minted with the buyer approval ???? pic.twitter.com/e83ZyxWGH5
— Michael Bouhanna (@michaelbouhanna) May 4, 2022
As you’d expect, with his seemingly infinite clout, Musk’s Twitter shenanigans ended up influencing the surrounding markets, with ApeCoin rising by nearly 20% in the hour following the picture change, and at least 12 Bored Apes being sold since (at the time of writing). In addition, the BAYC collection’s floor prices has also risen by 10 ETH, however, as with all of these changes, it is hard to distinguish how much of an effect Musk’s actions had.
