Elon Musk Sends Kekius Maximus Coins Flying With X Stunt: Here’s What’s Happening

Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk is no stranger to whipping up controversy with his social media antics, which occasionally have ripple effects on the crypto market. In the latest instance, the billionaire has sent the price of meme coins inspired by a Grok-created meme soaring with an X stunt. Here's what's happening. Elon Musk Changes Profile Over the past 24 hours, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has whipped up a frenzy with changes to his X profile. Specifically, he changed his profile name to Kekius Maximus and his display picture to a picture of the Grok-created meme. For the uninitiated, Kekius Maximus is a Grok-generated meme that combines the famous pepe meme with Gladiator's Maximus character. 

The meme had inspired several meme coins across the Ethereum and Solana blockchains, the oldest of which appeared to have launched 17 days ago. All of them have now soared to record highs following Elon Musk's X stunt.  At the time of writing, the Solana version has risen by 16,000% over the past 24 hours, while the Ethereum version has risen by over 700%, per DEX Screener data. Each boasts market capitalizations of $1.6 million and $123 million, respectively. So what's happening, and why has Elon Musk changed this profile? Toying With Mainstream Media Despite some reports suggesting that the move might be a sign of Musk's support for the meme coin, it appears to be part of a ploy to toy with mainstream news outlets following recent speculation that he has been using a burner account, "Adrian Dittman," to praise and defend himself on the platform. Following the profile change, the billionaire has enjoyed laughs about mainstream media reporting the situation. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1873982205099401489   The inspiration for the choice of the Kekius Maximus name appears to have come from an interaction with Alex "ALX" Lorusso, executive producer of the popular right-wing podcast The Benny Show. Amid the debate over Musk's ties to Adrian Dittman, Lorusso joked on Monday, December 30, that if the Tesla chief had an alternative account, it would be called "Kekius Maximus or Biggus Dickus." Musk responded to Lorusso's post, stating that his only alternative accounts were "cybergamer" and "babysmurf9000," which he used to beta-test software.  It is currently unclear if Lorusso has any significant ties to the Kekius Maximus meme coin beyond supporting it, perhaps for its ties to Pepe, which has controversial right-wing roots. His first post tied to the meme came on December 10.