Tech billionaire Elon Musk created a stir on his social media platform X on Tuesday when he changed his profile’s display name to “Kekius Maximus” and swapped his profile picture for an image of the famous meme character Pepe the Frog.
In Musk’s new profile picture, Pepe the Frog is wearing ancient Roman armor and holding a video game controller. According to Newsweek, the Kekius Maximus image and name appears to be a cross between Pepe the Frog and the character Maximus Decimus Meridius, which was played by Russell Crowe in the 2000 film “Gladiator.”
Newsweek reported that Pepe the Frog became popular on the message board 4chan during President-elect Donald Trump’s first campaign. In September 2016, the Anti-Defamation League reportedly flagged Pepe the Frog as a hate symbol, calling it the “Alt Right’s favorite meme.”
In a Tuesday post on X, Musk said Kekius Maximus would reach level 80 in “Path of Exile 2,” a video game that Musk reportedly plays.
NDTV reported that Kekius Maximus is a cryptocurrency memecoin operating on multiple blockchain platforms, including Ethereum and Solana, which recently became a valuable commodity in the cryptocurrency market.
Following Musk’s name change, the Kekius Maximus memecoin surged in value by more than 700% in the early hours of Tuesday, according to CoinGecko.
Although Musk has often shown interest in memecoins, there is no evidence that he is involved in the Kekius Maximus cryptocurrency.
The tech mogul is poised to lead the Department of Government Efficiency along with Vivek Ramaswamy when President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
This is not the first time Musk has changed his display name on X. In January 2023, he temporarily changed his name to “Mr. Tweet,” writing “Changed my name to Mr. Tweet, now Twitter won’t let me change it back.”
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