Elon Musk’s ‘DOGE’ gov meme sends political speculation soaring

Elon Musk may be floating the idea of establishing himself as the head of a new government institution if former United States president Donald Trump claims the Oval Office again in the November 2024 election. 

True to form, Musk teased the idea in a meme on the X social media platform featuring a double-entendre referencing both cryptocurrency and politics.

The post featured what appears to be an AI-generated image of Musk seated behind a desktop placard with the letters “D.O.G.E.”  printed on it. The image was accompanied by text reading “Department of Government Efficiency.” 

Dogecoin reached a 24-hour high in the hours after Musk’s post, though, as of the time of this article’s publication, it still remains below previous weeks’ highs for the past seven days.

Musk’s political ambition

As Cointelegraph recently reported, Trump recently vowed to create a government efficiency commission.  Per the former commander-in-chief, the commission would be “tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government, making recommendations for drastic reforms.” 

Musk retweeted a video of Trump’s remarks with his own commentary stating, “this is badly needed.” The billionaire tech mogul appeared to commit to contributing to the political committee, though stopped short of stating he’d accept an official government position.

“I look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises,” he posted, adding that “no pay, no title, no recognition is needed.”

Government efficiency

It’s unclear if Musk is seriously considering a government position or even if the back and forth presented by the media holds any merit. Trump’s comments claiming that Musk had “agreed” to the position were framed within the notion that “he’s not very busy.”

Per Trump:

“Elon, because he is not very busy, has agreed to head that task force. If he has the time, he’s a good one to do it and he has agreed to do it.”

The notion that Elon Musk is “not very busy” may well have been meant as a joke. Musk is currently the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, as well as the owner of Neuralink, The Boring Company, and the X social media platform, 

In just August and September (so far), he’s also been involved in a high profile conflict over the banning of X.com in Brazil, accepted a challenge to physically fight Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, and renewed his lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman. 

Whether Trump or Musk are seriously considering further collaboration may not become clear until after the November election results are sorted. 

Related: Advocates call for crypto to be discussed at US presidential debate