What Prompted Elon Musk To Substitute Twitter's Blue Bird With 'Doge' Meme?

In a surprising move, billionaire Elon Musk replaced Twitter's classic blue bird logo with a "doge" meme Monday.

The move comes a day after the Twitter CEO made an appeal for dismissal of a $258 billion racketeering lawsuit, which accused him of intentionally inflating the value of cryptocurrency Dogecoin. Users were left wondering why the "doge" logo suddenly appeared on Twitter's homepage.

In a tweet, Musk shared an image showing the face of the Doge meme riding a car while a police officer inspects the driver's license, which displayed the "old" blue bird logo.

Elon Musk also shared a screenshot of an earlier conversation with a Twitter user who requested him to purchase Twitter and modify its bird logo to a doge. He captioned the post with the words "'as promised."

The image of the Shiba Inu dog, commonly known as the "doge" meme, is the emblem of the widely used Dogecoin cryptocurrency, frequently endorsed by Musk himself.

The Doge image now appears on the top left corner of the Twitter homepage on the web version. The mobile version of Twitter didn't reflect the change.

The official Twitter page of Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency that features the lovable Shiba Inu dog, responded to the unexpected development. Adopting the meme's style, it wrote, "Very currency. Wow. Much Coin. How Money. So Crypto."

The billionaire entrepreneur acquired Twitter for $44 billion last October. In February, he shared a meme showing "Doge" purportedly assuming the position of the new head of Twitter and wrote, "[the] new CEO of Twitter is amazing."

Replacing the iconic blue bird logo with the Doge was seen as a witty comeback by Musk in response to the lawsuit filed against him by Dogecoin investors.

His legal representatives dismissed the lawsuit as a "fanciful piece of fiction." They argued that Musk's tweets about the cryptocurrency were innocuous and often silly in nature and held no relevance to the allegation. The lawsuit said Musk intentionally caused the price of the cryptocurrency to skyrocket by over 36,000% within two years and subsequently permitted it to plummet, causing significant financial losses for its investors.

The defense team claimed phrases such as "Dogecoin Rulz" and "no highs, no lows, only Doge" provided no substantive legal backing for the plaintiff's case.

Dogecoin value soars

The value of Dogecoin rose by 30% Tuesday after Musk changed the logo, delivering significant gains to its shareholders, reported Bloomberg.

While the price of Dogecoin experienced a favorable trend, several substantial changes introduced by Musk after acquiring Twitter have resulted in a considerable decline in the company's worth.

Twitter's market value now stands at less than half of what it was when Musk purchased it six months ago. Musk said the social media giant is worth $20 billion.