The period between Christmas and New Year’s Eve can be quite confusing for many individuals. This includes, it seems, the richest person in the world.
Amidst sharing adorable animal photos, boasting about his rocket’s size, and mocking the very notion of taxes, Elon Musk found a moment to update his username and profile picture on the social media site X to an alt-right meme favored by white supremacist internet trolls.
Musk’s new alias, Kekius Maximus, merges the character of Maximus from the film Gladiator with Pepe the Frog. The alt-right has adopted Pepe as the “guardian deity” of a satirical belief system that focuses on chaos and opposition to political correctness, as noted by research from the Southern Poverty Law Center (a group that Musk and others have a disdain for).
By using something as absurd as a frog god meme, right-wing trolls are able to disseminate their agendas without confronting the “insidious essence of white male nationalism they uphold,” according to the SPLC.
As is typical with Musk, it’s uncertain if his new persona is merely an attempt to provoke those who oppose him or if there’s a chance for personal gain involved.
This past Monday, the ongoing quarrel within MAGA over H-1B visas sparked renewed discussion about whether Musk operates a secondary account on X to interact favorably with his official profile—a action referred to as “sock-puppeting.” For over a year, the Adrian Dittmann account has provided such enthusiastic support for Musk—and has employed a remarkably similar style of rhetoric—that many users have speculated they might be the same individual.
This line of inquiry reached a peak during the H-1B visa discourse, as online detectives searched through Dittmann’s previous posts for hints.
Musk’s new Kekius Maximus persona might simply be a tactic to provoke users who suspect he has an alternate account, while simultaneously insulting anyone who recognizes that Pepe is linked to groups deemed hate organizations by the SPLC.
Conversely, Kekius Maximus also represents a “meme coin,” a category of cryptocurrency based on internet memes. Typically, meme coins don’t hold much value compared to their more serious counterparts, but president-elect Donald Trump’s “First Buddy” is such an enthusiast for meme coins that he named an advisory panel after one.
The acronym DOGE refers to dogecoin, a cryptocurrency created in 2013 as a parody of the highly speculative cryptocurrency market. Named after “doge,” a meme featuring a Shiba Inu, dogecoin has given rise to an entire genre of “dog coins.”
Shortly after the name change, the value of the Kekius Maximus meme coin skyrocketed by over 500%.
Last year, Musk and Tesla faced allegations of insider trading for supposedly leveraging his social media presence to influence the price of dogecoin, The Guardian reported.
Before rebranding the platform as X, he swapped Twitter’s iconic blue bird logo with the dogecoin shiba inu logo, resulting in a 30% surge in the coin’s value, noted The Guardian. Musk reportedly then sold around $124 million worth of the cryptocurrency, as alleged in an insider trading lawsuit by investors.
The case was dismissed in August, as the judge concluded that investors couldn’t present a viable insider trading case based on tweets that are considered “aspirational and puffery.”
So perhaps Musk transitioned to a frog dressed in gladiatorial gear because—in true American fashion—he indulged a bit too much in sugar, butter, and festive eggnog, leaving him a bit disoriented about the calendar.
Maybe he’s attempting to tease X users and the press.
Or perhaps he possesses some Kekius Maximus currency that he’s eager to offload for a favorable price, all in a completely non-insider trading manner, of course.
