- Elon Musk has received plaudits over the years for his crypto involvement, but the creator of Dogecoin has now called him a ‘self-absorbed grifter.’
- Elsewhere, a crypto pioneer has called the Tesla CEO a hypocrite after he dropped Bitcoin as a payment method but kept it on his company’s balance sheet.
Elon Musk has been involved in crypto for years now and for this, he has received plaudits and praise. However, this era seems to be coming to an end, with some key leaders in the crypto industry now calling him out. The co-creator of Dogecoin has labeled Musk a self-absorbed grifter while a crypto pioneer has described him as a hypocrite for his recent actions.
Dogecoin co-creator calls out the Dogefather
Musk has great love for Dogecoin and he has made this abundantly clear over the years. He has labeled himself the Dogefather and even been voted the honorary Dogecoin CEO. As a result, he is one of the most beloved personalities in the Dogecoin ecosystem.
However, the co-creator of Dogecoin isn’t as fond of the SpaceX founder. Jackson Palmer, one of the engineers who created Dogecoin back in 2013, isn’t amused with Musk’s recent larger-than-life involvement in the project. Palmer, who has been silent about the project for years, took to Twitter to express his thoughts.
Reminder: Elon Musk is and always will be a self-absorbed grifter.
He followed up this tweet with another one that stated, “Removing this in 1 min as that’s all I have to say and I enjoy the quiet life.” True to his word, he deleted the tweet in which he took the shot at Musk.
Palmer, despite creating the meme coin, didn’t make much money from it. He left the project in 2018 after five years of developing it. At the time, Dogecoin wasn’t worth much, nor was it as popular as it is now. In fact, when he left, he stated:
Back in the day, I had a few million Dogecoin, which was nothing. It was like five or ten grand’s worth. And I gave it all away to charities that we were supporting early on.
Billy Markus, the other Dogecoin co-creator, also didn’t make much from the project. He also left the project before it blew up. He recently came out of the shadows to reveal that when he created Dogecoin, he had no thought about its environmental impact.
Elon Musk is a hypocrite – Crypto pioneer
The Elon Musk criticism wasn’t limited to the Dogecoin co-creator. A pioneer in the crypto exchange sector has piled on, calling out the PayPal co-founder for his contrasting take on Bitcoin. Nick Spanos believes Musk lacks the moral authority to call out Bitcoin for its energy use while he benefits from the crypto’s profits.
Spanos is the founder of Bitcoin Center NYC, which he launched in 2013. He is also the co-founder of Zap Protocol, a smart contract oracle platform focusing on decentralized applications.
Speaking to U.K paper Express, Spanos challenged Musk’s energy consciousness while his company holds $1.5 billion worth of the crypto. Tesla also recently sold about $100 million of Bitcoin to purportedly prove its liquidity.
I challenge Elon that if Bitcoin is too dirty for him to accept as payment for his electric vehicles, then it should also be too dirty to ‘hold’ for profits based on everyone else using it.
He went on to compare Musk’s ‘hypocrisy’ to John Kerry’s, Joe Biden’s special envoy for climate. Before taking up the position, Kerry owned millions of dollars worth of shares in oil companies. However, he sold them all prior to taking up the position. Musk, on the other hand, still continues to profit from the ‘dirty crypto.’
At least Climate Czar John Kerry divested from his millions in the oil industry before taking his position of virtue. Curiously, Elon wants to deny green-conscious consumers the ability to trade their supposedly dirty coin for a clean car. That seems counterproductive.
