President-elect Donald Trump is selling DOGE shirts after appointing billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as heads of the newly-coined Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE for short — a reference to Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, Dogecoin.

The rudimentary shirts are on sale for $28 on Trump’s official campaign site. Amidst an orange-washed background of Mars, Musk and Trump’s face are plastered below ‘D O G E’. Peeking over their shoulder is a little Shiba Inu, the official Dogecoin mascot.

Following the thinly-veiled announcement of the Department of Government Efficiency, $DOGE’s volume rose to $47 billion. However, its price and market cap remained relatively stable.

It was widely expected that Musk would be appointed to an advisory or cabinet role, which may explain why $DOGE price hasn’t continued to surge.

This is Musk’s latest attempt to shamelessly pump (and likely profit) from his favorite cryptocurrency. Protos has previously tracked Dogecoin’s price following Musk’s promotional posts on X, revealing that DOGE pumped up to 32% after he tweeted about the memecoin.

Read more: CHART: Dogecoin market cap now greater than 60% of S&P 500

The billionaire posted about the token 30 times on 22 different days, between May and November 2021 alone. Since then, Musk momentarily changed Twitter’s logo to the DOGE mascot, which led to a 30% price pump.

Dogecoin investors famously sued Musk for allegedly orchestrating these “publicity stunts” to pump and sell at a profit. However, Musk managed to get the lawsuit dismissed in late August.

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A respected investigative journalist has branded Elon Musk a free speech hypocrite after X (formerly Twitter) blocked his account for criticizing Telegram’s controversial content policy.

Bulgarian journalist Christo Grozev claimed he was blocked for complaining about Telegram’s facilitation of child pornography and suggested that the ban was hypocritical of Musk after he called the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov an attack on freedom of speech.

“Elon Musk is thrashing France for wanting Telegram to do LITERALLY what he’s doing,” posted Grozev.

Grozev argues that it isn’t controversial to remove freedom of speech for people with Telegram channels containing the words “underage girls.” However, Musk, who has labeled himself a free speech advocate, has called for the Russian entrepreneur’s release on the grounds that moderation is “a propaganda word for censorship.” 

According to X, Grozev’s post violated its child sexual exploitation policy and he was forced to delete it in order to unlock his account. He was also told he could appeal the restriction.

Read more: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested, conspiracy theorists do their thing

Durov was arrested last Saturday. According to prosecutors, the investigation is looking into allegations of child pornography, drug trafficking, and fraudulent transactions on the platform.

Forbes reports that authorities are repeatedly discovering examples of AI-generated child porn being distributed through Telegram channels.

However, it also says that, unlike Meta and TikTok, Telegram has seemingly failed to police this content, accusing it of ignoring law enforcement requests for user data.

According to reports, it has also refused to sign up to international programs to detect and remove online child abuse material, and it has declined to join the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) or the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).

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Crypto commentator and Easy Money author Jacob Silverman has convinced a US district judge to order Elon Musk to reveal the shareholders of X (formerly Twitter). The journalist intervened as a non-party in an unrelated California legal dispute involving Musk’s last-minute maneuvers in taking the platform private. 

Silverman explained his reasoning succinctly: “People should know who owns an important site for public discourse and whether its free-speech fundamentalist majority shareholder is doing business with censorious dictatorships.”

According to the judge, Silverman prevailed in his request for public disclosure because he filed a timely request — “not enough delay to deny intervention under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(b)” — and did not prejudice nor re-litigate any issues that would have denied his intervention request.

Instead, he permissively placed a valid legal burden on respondents that was “not onerous.”

According to the judge, the list of Twitter shareholders “does not contain any scandalous information or trade secrets” and may be revealed for “public interest in understanding the judicial process.”

United States District Judge Susan Illston ruled that by September 4, X “​​shall file an unredacted version of the supplemental corporate disclosure statement on the public docket.” For the first time, the world will know the names of all major equity owners of the company when Musk acquired it.

Read more: X has been a crypto scam-filled failure for Elon Musk — now what?

Jacob Silverman wants the world to know who’s really behind X

Silverman has written critically about Musk’s chaotic weeks of acquisition negotiations with Jack Dorsey and his board of directors. In Silverman’s view, Musk bought Twitter to empower Republicans and techno-capitalists who felt victimized by changing social norms.

Indeed, Musk is a staunch Trump supporter and aligned with many right-wing views such as offense at gender pronouns. He also called the Democratic Party “the party of division and hate.” Despite Musk’s public claims of enhancing free speech on X, Silverman believes that he actually just wants to influence political outcomes.

Following that logic, Silverman is curious about foreign interests who might have owned equity in Twitter and persuaded or compensated Musk in his going-private bids. Silverman intervened in at least two lawsuits seeking disclosure of the names on Twitter’s cap table, and he has won his bid for at least one.

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Binance Smart Chain’s ‘biggest’ NFT artist is suing Elon Musk’s X Corp after the social media giant suspended his accounts, allegedly ignoring its own policy and costing him his livelihood.

Jeremy Ryan, aka ‘NFT Demon,’ filed a lawsuit in California on Wednesday in which he accuses X (formerly Twitter) of unfairly suspending his seven accounts and ‘severely’ damaging his crypto and NFT businesses. 

Ryan, who became an NFT artist after surviving brain cancer, says his record of minted art makes him the largest NFT artist on the Binance Smart Chain. His work has attracted support from numerous celebrities including John Cena and Snoop Dogg.

However, he argues that being cut off from his accounts means he has “lost his predominant source of income and livelihood,” and that he is losing future profits that could be made if he was still active on X promoting his NFT work.     

The lawsuit calls X’s content moderation policies “inconsistent and arbitrary” and claims that his suspension was “without any proper explanation or justifiable reason.” Ryan submitted 13 appeals for his NFT Demon account without receiving a response from X. 

The suit reads, “X has a pattern of unexpectedly suspending cryptocurrency and NFT-related accounts with no explanation and some of these accounts are coins that Mr. Musk has personally purported to take an interest.”

The lawsuit also details a long list of free speech statements from Musk before arguing that the CEO and his platform repeatedly go against their official policy on content moderation.

Read more: Insider trading lawsuit: Here’s how much Elon Musk pumped DOGE

“Despite the platform’s announced commitment to ‘defending and respecting the user’s voice’ as one of its core values, it has repeatedly engaged in behavior contrary to this core value to the detriment of Plaintiff Jeremy Ryan,” the lawsuit reads.

Overall Ryan has made eight legal claims against X Corp, including breach of contract, unjust enrichment, promissory fraud, false advertising, and unfair business practices. NFT Demon is seeking damages in excess of $75,000 and a trial by jury. 

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Bloomberg has reported that Elon Musk has been advising Donald Trump on issues related to cryptocurrency and Trump is considering Musk for an advisory role in a future administration. 

Musk has since taken to X to claim that he is “pretty sure” that he has “never discussed crypto with Trump.”

Musk has tangled with cryptocurrency previously. Tesla famously purchased bitcoin and he has regularly flirted with Dogecoin, even mentioning it in his Saturday Night Live appearance. 

Read more: Donald Trump sells the clothes off his back in latest NFT promotion

Trump has flip-flopped on cryptocurrency. He previously claimed that it “seems like a scam,” but now that he’s mastered the art of making profits from his NFT collections, he’s completely on board.

Crypto has become an increasingly important issue in the upcoming United States presidential election with Trump’s recent endorsement and the perception in the industry that Biden is less friendly to its interests than Trump.

The crypto industry’s recent spending on things like the Fairshake PAC has further forced this issue into the political mainstream. 

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When Elon Musk was forced to purchase Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion, he claimed that there were a couple of specific reasons for the move: First, he would destroy the bot-nets that had become a norm on the platform, and second, he would bring free speech back and transform Twitter into the internet’s ‘town square.’

Unfortunately, both of those promises have failed to materialize. Indeed, one of them — the idea that Musk would get rid of the bots — can be viewed in real-time, an epidemic of bots replying with ‘░P░U░S░S░Y░I░N░B░I░O░,’ crypto scams, offers of drugs, and unrelenting verified imposter accounts.

The current string of bots relies on mixing and matching different character encoding standards to avoid detection — a strategy that has, for now at least, worked shockingly well. A software engineer who spoke to Protos on background said that spam detection across all social media and video games “is a cat-and-mouse game that will never end,” implying that Musk will never defeat the armies of bots he’s promised to exterminate.

Of course, the idea of ‘impossible’ has never stopped Musk. The richest man in the world is known for plowing huge swaths of his wealth into projects that won’t necessarily succeed, like Tesla and SpaceX. But can throwing money at the problems plaguing X (formerly Twitter) really solve them and allow Musk to create a new, vibrant, digital town square? Not only that, will he actually have the money to spend on the likely unprofitable venture?

Read more: Elon Musk burner X account trolled Caroline Ellison and Michael Saylor

Musk is fighting for his life (if his life is $56 billion)

It’s worth remembering how Musk was able to complete the purchase of Twitter in 2022. Not only did he borrow $1 billion from SpaceX to complete the acquisition, he also financed the majority of the buyout through loans with Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and Barclay’s.

His equity partners include Jack Dorsey, Larry Ellison, and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

This means that before taking into account employees, infrastructure costs, and paying out creators on X, Musk has to shell out over a billion dollars in interest payments to his loan providers every year. Including all the other expenses, it’s hard to believe that X — which saw its revenue fall 54% to $1.9 billion last year — can be profitable now or any time soon.

However, Musk has been a little distracted by his numerous others ventures and mounting legal issues, most importantly a massive payday of $56 billion that’s been denied to him due to a ruling by Judge Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Chancery.

Read more: We now know when Elon Musk got scared and sold Tesla’s bitcoin

Judge McCormick characterized Tesla’s board of directors as “supine servants of an overweening master,” with the board almost immediately authorizing a re-vote on the payment plan to shareholders and Musk suggesting that Tesla would quickly re-incorporate in Texas.

But Musk’s problems don’t end with the Delaware Chancery. The much anticipated CyberTruck, of which only about 4,000 have been delivered, was recalled after a customer had the pedal cover on the accelerator slip and wedge itself in such a way that the gas pedal would remain down even after someone lifted their foot off of it. Last month, sport and culture website Defector aptly ran the headline “Cybertruck Deliveries Halted Due To Car Being A Big Piece Of Shit That Doesn’t Work.”

Most recently, Musk laid off 10% of the company, including the entire Tesla charging team — despite Tesla becoming the go-to charger of choice for EVs throughout the US.

Tesla was added to the S&P 500 index in December 2020. Since then, the company’s share price is down almost 20% while the S&P is up almost 40%. This means that Tesla is one of the poorest performers in the S&P 500.

Will Elon ever sell X?

It’s unclear what Musk plans to do if he doesn’t receive his $56 billion pay package — though he’s claimed that without the money, staying on at Tesla as CEO is out of the question. The richest man in the world apparently has 411 million shares of Tesla, with about half of those pledged as collateral for loans he’s taken out.

So, if Musk does decide to divest himself fully from Tesla in the event that he isn’t given his pay package, it means that he’ll likely have to (and want to) begin to sell his shares. Even if he slowly sells his shares to not put a lot of sell pressure on the stock, there’s little chance he’d be able to retain as much value as his supposed net worth — and it’s likely that if Musk steps down as CEO shares will continue to tumble.

Musk’s other ventures provide some ability for him to continue to earn money, but there’s no doubt that Tesla is his cash cow. All of this to say that, even if he isn’t valued at $200 billion after selling his Tesla shares, there’s little likelihood that he’d need to get rid of X in a fire sale. With tons of cash available, Musk could easily live the rest of his life with X bleeding money every year.

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X owner Elon Musk has confirmed that he’s behind a secret account that engaged with explicit posts about former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, posted odd responses to MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor, and interacted with off-the-wall FTX conspiracies, a lawsuit transcript reveals.

Musk is being sued by 22-year-old college grad student Ben Brody over posts he shared supporting a right-wing conspiracy theory that falsely linked Brody to a clash of right-wing groups in Oregon.

During a March deposition, Musk was grilled by Brody’s lawyer, Mark Bankston and admitted that he owns the @Ermnmusk X account. 

The account has posted various controversial takes and wild claims, even reportedly engaging with conspiracy theories alleging that FTX acted as a middleman in laundering funds through Ukraine on behalf of US democrats. 

It also responded to a post sexualizing Caroline Ellison, posting “I librarians” underneath a picture of the former Alameda CEO. Musk also responded to a post from MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor, asking him “Do you like Japanese girls?”

Musk claims it was a ‘test account’

It was suggested last year that @Ermnmusk was run by the Tesla boss after he shared a screenshot revealing its profile picture on his device. Additionally, the account also made posts while in character as X Æ A-12, Musk’s now four-year-old son. 

When Bankston asked Musk about the account, he said, “I would not use this account,” adding “It was just used for — for testing.”

Read more: We now know when Elon Musk got scared and sold Tesla’s bitcoin

Brody’s lawsuit accuses Musk of defaming him in a series of X posts. In one of these posts, Musk responded to a blogger’s theories about the right-wing clash by saying “Looks like one is a college student (who wants to join the govt) and another is maybe an Antifa member, but nonetheless a probable false flag situation.”

However, Brody was in California when the groups clashed during an Oregon LGBTQ pride event. The evidence linking Brody seemingly relied on his resemblance to an individual pictured at the clash. Brody claims Musk’s posts led to individuals harassing himself and his family to the point where they had to flee their home.

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Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) is paying legal fees for a free speech lawsuit against Jack Dorsey’s company, Block. The irony is immediately obvious to long-time users of X: Dorsey co-founded Twitter, sold it to Musk so that he could focus on Block, and now X is paying to litigate against a Block employee.

Specifically, Chloe Happe v. Block Inc., involves a former Block employee who alleges that she was fired from her job at the company for statements she made on pseudonymous X accounts. She claims her two accounts were satirical and that she made the comments during private, non-working hours.

Nevertheless, despite the non-work related nature of these social media posts, Musk’s X is corporately funding her lawsuit against Block.

Don’t like Twitter censorship? Just buy it

Musk’s complaints against Dorsey’s version of censorship at Twitter were so great that he decided to simply acquire the platform outright. In 2022, Musk acquired Dorsey’s company in a transaction involving a group of investors.

Musk had previously criticized Twitter’s handling of obvious criminal activity like child exploitation while Dorsey was in charge. He now leads the censorship policy with plenty of examples of personal, editorial intervention.

Before Musk purchased Twitter, he vindictively promised to release ‘Twitter files’ that, in his opinion, would prove that Dorsey allowed politically motivated and US government-supervised content moderation on the platform. Musk was personally involved in revealing those files.

At the time, Dorsey fired back, criticizing Musk’s decision not to release all of these files at once, and questioning why he was involved in editorial decisions and crafting news media, rather than operating a social media platform for user (not owner) generated content.

Read more: Twitter is collapsing — and it’s hilarious

Even Dorsey had initially supported Musk taking the company private. Later, however, Dorsey said Musk’s decision was a mistake. “It all went south,” Dorsey lamented.

A regulatory filing did reveal that Dorsey retained a $1 billion stake in Twitter after it went private, maybe giving him a legitimate reason to be irked with Musk. That stake has shrunk precipitously, with X’s valuation dropping over 70% as of one post-acquisition financing round. Via this equity stake, Musk has caused Dorsey to lose money directly.

Not all conflict — they’re billionaires, after all

It’s not that Musk and Dorsey couldn’t cooperate on some things. Indeed, they both backed the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund, for example, which helped Bitcoin developers successfully push back against Craig Wright’s torrent of lawsuits.

In another example, the two men had some back-and-forth over who actually controls so-called Web 3. Musk kidded about where he could find Web 3 — which barely exists. Dorsey cheekily agreed, placing it “between a and z,” a reference to venture capitalists Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Both men have had historical conflicts with general partners at a16z. Mark Andreessen, for example, blocked Dorsey after several disagreements.

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Blockchain analytics company Arkham Intelligence claims to know the specific wallets holding Tesla’s and SpaceX’s bitcoin. Once thought to simply be held by a corporate custodian with impeccable privacy practices, analysts at Arkham claim that they have now uncovered Tesla’s 68 and SpaceX’s 28 bitcoin wallets.

According to its dashboard, Tesla currently owns 11,509 bitcoin worth $775 million at time of publication while SpaceX’s dashboard shows 8,285 bitcoin worth $558 million. Coinbase’s prime custody controls all of these wallets on behalf of Tesla and SpaceX.

Read more: Elon Musk promised to fund Dogecoin, now the foundation accounts are overdue

Here’s when Elon Musk got too scared to hodl Tesla’s bitcoin

If Arkham has correctly identified the Coinbase custodial wallets, it knows exactly when Musk authorized sales of Tesla’s bitcoin. (Tesla purchased precisely $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in January 2021. Tesla also accepted bitcoin for vehicle purchases.)

First, on various dates during the first quarter of 2021, Tesla sold $272 million worth of bitcoin and realized a stunning $128 million in gains on those sales. (Bitcoin traded in a wide range during Q1 2021 from a low of $27,734 to a high of $61,782. The height of that range allowed Tesla to earn a 59% return within just a few weeks.)

Secondly, on various dates during the second quarter of 2022, Tesla sold $936 million worth of bitcoin and realized $64 million in gains on those sales.

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Elon Musk has leapt to the defense of a bitcoin-loving 66-year-old dad after he responded to a viral TikTok video in which his daughter claimed he abandoned her at the age of five to become a breakdancer.

Social media influencer Madi Hart shared a video last week in which she described how her father, Ben Hart, became a D-list celebrity after he abandoned her family to “pursue amateur breakdancing” — and “got really good.”

According to Hart, despite finding time to appear on numerous talk shows, and dance with Paula Abdul, her father often forgot her birthday and “wouldn’t pay my medical bills.”

However, she did admit to receiving a number of pieces of breakdancing merchandise from him, including a t-shirt — which she wears in the video — featuring a photo of him in action and his B-Boy name, ‘Benihana.’

Hart’s video describing her ‘funny trauma’ duly went viral, garnering more than 5 million views but her father was apparently not impressed and took to X (formerly Twitter) to post a response. In his video, Ben Hart, dressed in a Bitcoin-patterned shirt, claimed that he didn’t abandon his daughter to become a breakdancer, but simply split up with her mother and moved a mile down the road. He also said that he still visited his kids. 

Read more: KSI’s crypto Twitter return hit with community note warning

Hart, who calls himself a ‘Bitcoin explainer’ and ‘freedom maximalist,’ and posts crypto takes alongside videos of him breakdancing in Bitcoin-related attire, admitted that from the perspective of a five-year-old, it may have been perceived as abandonment. However, he also claimed that he did contribute to his daughter’s medical bills and said, “I paid out about $5 million to my ex-wife to cover costs for her and the kids.” 

While Hart’s video response became just as popular as his daughter’s original clip, also racking up more than 5 million views, it also caught the attention of X owner and prolific tweeter Elon Musk who simply told Hart “You’re Awesome.” Hart thanked Musk, gushing that “#Tesla and #Bitcoin are my two biggest investments.”

Read more: Sydney Sweeney X account promotes ‘t**s’ and Solana shitcoin in hack

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