Tesla CEO Elon Musk has changed his profile picture on Twitter to a collage of Bored Ape Yacht Club images.
At the center of Elon Musk’s new picture is a gold-furred chimpanzee wearing blue translucent glasses, Bored Ape #5809. There’s no indication Musk owns the NFTs in question, though that hasn’t stopped the Ethereum address holding the Bored Ape from being bombarded with NFTs sent by hopefuls trying to catch the Tesla CEO’s attention (the same phenomenon led to Budweiser getting flooded with dick pic NFTs).
In fact, the image that Musk used is a promotional collage created for a Sotheby’s auction of 101 Bored Ape NFTs that was held in September 2021. Michael Bouhanna, VP, Contemporary Art Specialist & Co-Head of Digital Art at Sotheby’s, tweeted at Musk about it asking him to remove or credit.
“As much [as] I admire your work I’d like you to remove your PFP that I created for our Sotheby’s sale. Or you credit me,” Bouhanna wrote, including emojis. “Happy to send you the original file minted with the buyer approval.”
Elon Musk and Crypto Twitter
Musk has a long history of engaging with the crypto Twitter community, including trolling people and sharing memes that have historically pumped the price of Dogecoin.
In this case, he even tweeted a common comment from NFT (non-fungible token) critics, writing, “I dunno … seems kinda fungible.”
Prominent members of the community have started to react to the apparent realization that Musk may have simply grabbed a Bored Ape promotional image, and does not actually own the Apes in his profile picture.
“Twitter owner right click saved us,” tweeted notable Bored Ape NFT holder Josh Ong.
Musk also tweeted, “I dunno … seems kinda fungible.”
ApeCoin and the Bored Ape Yacht Club
Regardless of whether Musk intended to troll the Bored Ape Yacht Club community, his actions on Twitter still appear to have the power to move markets; ApeCoin, the token powering the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) community, jumped nearly 20% in the hour following the appearance of Musk’s new profile picture.
This briefly put the cryptocurrency at $17.49 per token, according to CoinMarketCap. It has since retraced to around $15.60, up approximately 2% on the day, but still down over 17% in the last seven days.
Bored Ape Yacht Club has been making headlines this week, with the launch of its Otherside metaverse at the weekend.
The minting event for BAYC’s Otherdeeds NFTs was so popular that it clogged the Ethereum network, skyrocketing gas fees, and led to backlash from within the BAYC community.
Elsewhere, if you’ve been living under a rock, Musk is currently in the process of acquiring Twitter for $44 billion.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.
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