Elon Musk Leaves D.O.G.E. – Is This Good for Dogecoin’s Prospects?

Elon Musk, the world’s most eccentric billionaire and innovative tech entrepreneur, has once again captured wide public attention as he stepped down from his unofficial role as a US government advisor and head of the Department of Government Efficiency, which he jokingly referred to as D.O.G.E., after his favorite meme cryptocurrency, Dogecoin.

Now, many in the crypto community are wondering if Elon Musk will resume his frequent meme posting and supporting Dogecoin on X (formerly Twitter) as he did before. With 2 trillion Dogecoin cuts in circulation, the question arises: will Musk’s involvement continue to be a way of life throughout the crypto space?

Musk also faces scrutiny after his public comments while leaving the Trump administration. At a press conference Friday with Musk, he criticized certain policies, prompting speculation on whether Musk’s engagement with Doge will rekindle. Elon Musk has said that the Doge team is doing important work to enhance the coin’s viability.

As President Donald Trump speaks on various issues, Musk told the Washington Post that he believes Dogecoin will continue to thrive regardless of his political affiliations. Elon Musk is leaving the senior White House discourse behind, focusing instead on the Tesla CEO’s ventures in cryptocurrency.

Elon Musk quits D.O.G.E.; community thanks him

Elon Musk was appointed by President Trump to cut down on excessive spending via the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.). As Musk stated in an X post on Friday, May 29, his scheduled time as a Special Government Employee had ended. He will now return to his usual business in the tech and space sphere. The crypto community, with many Dogecoin fans among them, including the co-founder of the meme coin DOGE, has been closely watching the developments from the Trump administration. Billy Markus, thanked Musk For his work in the government in the comments to his X post on Friday, Musk said he would continue to advocate for innovative financial solutions.

Musk tweeted about his plans for crypto during his time as an adviser to President Donald Trump.:

“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.”

Curiously, it must be noted that even while giving the lion’s share of his time to working for the US government, Musk managed to combine it with running his multiple companies on a full scale – SpaceX, xAI, Tesla, Neuralink, etc. Last week, Musk announced the integration of his Grok AI chatbot on Telegram. However, due to his controversial behavior and statements made at that time, many of Tesla’s customers turned away, and the company’s share price showed a significant plunge.

During his full-time involvement with the US government service, Musk seemed to have set aside his support for Dogecoin as he hardly ever mentioned it in his tweets and posted no DOGE memes, which he loved to do in the past. During those several months he worked for the US president, Musk only mentioned D.O.G.E., highlighting its potential as a legitimate currency in discussions with the Trump administration. However, once he stated in a public interview, responding to multiple questions online, that the US government had no plans to directly use Dogecoin or any other crypto. However, in March, Donald Trump signed an executive order, commanding the creation of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve or “digital Fort Knox” similar to the strategic gold reserve held by the US government in Fort Knox.

While still being part of D.O.G.E, which conducted various audits of government organizations and agencies to cut out wasteful spending, Musk several times proposed in his tweets that Fort Knox should also be inspected and audited, since it has never been done before. Half-jokingly, the tech mogul assumed on X that gold might not be there already, since it was possibly long stolen by the bureaucrats who run it.

Musk remains the “DogeFather”

Musk is well-known for his wide support for Dogecoin since 2017-2018, when he still did not own Twitter and just frequently posted memes, including those featuring DOGE. At that time, he began accumulating a community of millions of meme coin fans and crypto lovers in general around himself. They joined Tesla fans and tech lovers who already followed the eccentric entrepreneur.

In 2021, Musk made shock waves in the crypto community when he announced that Tesla had bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin and also started taking payments in BTC for its electric vehicles, a move that was praised by President Donald Trump. That pushed the Bitcoin price way up. However, about a month later, the company suspended the BTC payments option over environmental concerns surrounding the Bitcoin mining process, a decision that caught the attention of the federal government.

But Musk continued to support Dogecoin, calling it “the currency of people.” In late April 2021, he debuted on the popular US TV show, Saturday Night Live (SNL), where he spoke a lot about crypto and Dogecoin in particular, touting it to a multi-million audience of viewers and making mainstream media talk about DOGE. Before that TV debut, Musk published a tweet in which he called himself “The DogeFather” (referencing the iconic Francis Coppola movie “The Godfather”).

On May 8, Dogecoin surged to an all-time high of $0.7376, capturing the attention of investors during the Trump administration. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, famously clashed with federal agencies as he criticized federal spending and proposed to cut spending, which resonated during the Conservative Political Action Conference.

As Trump said about the federal bureaucracy, “We need to reduce the deficit,” echoing sentiments that Dogecoin supporters embraced. Musk told a White House correspondent that Doge would continue its rise, asserting that the Doge team was committed to enhancing its value and presence.

As Elon Musk leaves the White House, many speculate about the future of Dogecoin. With 130 days remaining before May 30, the Oval Office discussions on federal workforce policies may have lasting impacts on the cryptocurrency. The South Lawn of the White House witnessed protests advocating for life throughout the government to embrace digital currencies.

Dogecoin price faces decline

Another portion of hype given to Dogecoin by the tech billionaire came unexpectedly when he had already bought Twitter and began rebranding it as X. In April 2023. Back then, the community watched in awe as the DOGE mascot, the image of the Kabosu Shiba Inu dog, replaced the iconic blue bird as the Twitter logo and stayed there for about a week.

The Dogecoin price soared by more than 30% on that move, with some on-chain reports saying that whales in the close circle of Elon Musk made huge profits on the meme coin back then, especially as the federal government began to take notice. And he has a few more times called himself “The DogeFather” in his X posts, but did it in the context of the D.O.G.E. rather than Dogecoin.

Now that Musk has quit his unofficial advisory post at the US government, the community hopes that the billionaire will resume his support for Dogecoin and perhaps add it to X Payments, especially in light of the upcoming 2024 elections. He recently confirmed that the payment system is being tested at the moment before going live. Still, since Musk announced his last day at D.O.G.E., the Dogecoin price has The Dogecoin price declined by about 18% after the announcement from the federal government regarding regulatory scrutiny.