Elon Musk, owner of Twitter and a big backer of the original meme coin Dogecoin, is stepping down as CEO of the social media platform to focus on product development. He will serve as Twitter’s chief technology officer (CTO).

Elon Musk resigns as Twitter CEO

In a tweet late May 11, the tech billionaire said Twitter had hired a CEO who would take over in six weeks.

Meanwhile, DOGE, like the rest of the cryptocurrency market, is down 32% from its April 2023 peak and could fall further following this announcement.

Musk is an ardent supporter of cryptocurrencies and has specifically expressed his admiration for the meme token DOGE. In many cases, DOGE prices rose following Musk's comments, which were mostly posted on Twitter.

As with most meme coins, some believe DOGE has no fundamental value, with supporters keen to ride the coin's bull and bear cycles. During the last bull cycle, DOGE rallied above $0.70, peaking when Elon Musk appeared on Saturday Night Live (SNL) and called him "Master Governor."

DOGE plummeted more than 85% over the past few months, falling to $0.05 in Q4 2022. However, that didn’t stop Elon Musk from tweeting about the project.

In April, DOGE prices soared when Twitter, the company Musk currently leads, temporarily changed its logo to a Shiba Inu in connection with the meme project.

In response, DOGE surged, adding $4 billion, from around $0.07 to $0.10. Musk said he made good on his promise to temporarily replace Twitter’s blue bird logo with a Shiba Inu.

Sued for supporting Dogecoin

Last month, the billionaire asked a U.S. court to throw out the $258 billion racketeering lawsuit. In the case, Musk is accused of running a pro-DOGE scheme.

Excerpts from the lawsuit follow:

The defendants knew since 2019 that Dogecoin had no value but still enabled Dogecoin to profit from their transactions. Musk used his position as the world’s richest man to run and manipulate the Dogecoin pyramid scheme for profit, publicity, and entertainment.

With Elon Musk stepping down as Twitter CEO, it remains to be seen how DOGE will react in the coming days.