Musk secretly funded Bitcoin rival – WSJ

Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter), has been financing the development of meme-based cryptocurrency Dogecoin, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal on Friday based on excerpts from a biography of the billionaire due to be released later this month.

Musk, who has been openly promoting Dogecoin on his Twitter account for years, has also been among its investors, according to the WSJ article. Prior to acquiring Twitter, he also reportedly planned to create a new blockchain-based social media platform, which could have had a payment system using Dogecoin.

“After lunch, he sent [his brother] Kimbal a few texts fleshing out the idea for “a blockchain social media system that does both payments and short text messages like Twitter,” the article says, quoting the biography.

The excerpt mentions the days prior to Musk making an official bid for acquiring Twitter. According to the biography, while he still liked the idea of a brand new social media platform, he decided to reimagine Twitter instead because it already had a base of users.

While Musk’s devotion to Dogecoin was no secret – he repeatedly tweeted his support for the token and said he owned several coins – his monetary involvement with the cryptocurrency came as a surprise.

The WSJ article prompted an instant rally in Dogecoin, although it later subsided. Dogecoin is currently trading at $0.06, according to Coindesk, down by 9.41% so far this year. Its market capitalization is roughly $8.9 billion.

For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section