How Much DOGE Does Elon Own?
Key Takeaways:
- Elon Musk’s role in Dogecoin’s widespread popularity cannot be understated. The meme coin has become a household name, largely thanks to the billionaire.
- Studies have been conducted that prove positive Elon Musk tweets correlate with Dogecoin’s price increases.
- Some sources speculate that Elon owns over US $3 billion worth of DOGE in various wallets.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
When Dogecoin owners hear the name “Elon”, their ears prick up like a Shiba Inu dog who just heard the rattle of their bowl. Although Dogecoin’s history pre-dates Musk’s involvement by nearly a decade, his interest in the meme coin has become almost the biggest influence in its spot price. This article will dive into Musk’s influence over the popular meme coin and attempt to uncover the contents of Elon’s DOGE wallet.
We Found Out How Much Dogecoin Elon Musk Owns
Despite regular tweets and opinions on the cryptocurrency, Musk has never publicly disclosed how much Dogecoin he holds. Nobody knows for sure exactly how much DOGE is owned by the cryptocurrency’s “unofficial Godfather”. Some have speculated he once held over $3 billion dollars worth of the coin. However, there are several factors that may indicate how much Dogecoin Elon Muck actually holds.
The GiveDirectly theory
Transactions made on the public blockchain are easily accessible via a block explorer. This means that if someone could find a transaction made by Elon on the Dogecoin network, they could trace it back to his wallet and investigate his holdings. This is exactly what a couple of detectives did on Reddit in 2021.
GiveDirectly, a charity known to distribute funds to some of the world’s most poverty-stricken regions started accepting cryptocurrency in February 2021. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin pointed out the charity didn’t accept Dogecoin, to which they responded quickly by enabling support for the meme coin. Upon seeing this, Elon Musk immediately jumped on board and transferred a significant sum of DOGE, tweeting about it that same day.
Sensing their opportunity, a Reddit user launched a Dogecoin block explorer to investigate any recent, high-value transfers. The address they came across had transferred 150k DOGE to the charity’s wallet (worth around $11k USD at the time).
Although there’s quite a good chance this wallet is indeed Musk’s, little information can be gleaned from its transaction history. The most it ever held for more than a couple of days was 47k DOGE – worth around $3.4k in 2021. And by the start of 2022, the wallet address was practically empty, with no activity since October 2021. It remains unclear who this wallet belongs to, whether it was Musk’s, and if he still has access to it.
The Whale theory
Another theory is that Musk is so positive and expressive about Dogecoin because he was by far the coin’s biggest owner. In 2021, when the meme coin was at its peak, a certain wallet was flagged as owning over 36 billion DOGE. This was equivalent to nearly a third of all circulating tokens of the remaining number of Dogecoins left to mine, which naturally presented some issues with decentralization. Some speculated that this investor couldn’t be Musk, due to his previous comments disparaging crypto whales that accumulated too much of one coin.
Nevertheless, the extreme sums of money contained in the wallet – approximately USD $3 billion in 2021 – led some fans to believe the portfolio must be Elon’s. Today, that wallet address has been cleaned out. In June 2023, over 10 billion DOGE (worth $690 million) were sent to varying wallets. As of July, the Dogecoin wallet that once held 36 billion DOGE now holds less than a thousand of the meme coin.
Does Elon Own Doge For Sure?
While these theories are interesting and have some merit, they remain just that – theories. Nobody knows for sure exactly how much Dogecoin Elon Musk holds/once held. However, we do know that the entrepreneur definitely owned DOGE, at least at some point. In February 2021, Elon purchased Dogecoin for his son, which he publicly announced via Twitter. He followed this up in May 2021, when he tweeted “I haven’t & won’t sell any Doge”.
And his electric vehicle company, Tesla, has also invested in the digital currency. Their primary holdings were in Bitcoin, however, Musk confirmed the business sold over 75% of their BTC portfolio in July 2022. At the same time, Elon commented that, while they’d divested from Bitcoin, Tesla had “not sold any of [their] Dogecoin.”
At the time, Tesla held $218m worth of digital assets – most of which was still Bitcoin. At the time, BTC was trading around $19,500 per coin, and Tesla held approximately 10,500 of them. The quick math suggests that about $205m of Tesla’s digital assets were tied up in BTC, meaning that they likely held $10m or less of DOGE. Of course, none of these figures can be confirmed and may be incorrect – but it’s as close as we can get given the private nature of Musk’s holdings.
Does Elon Still Own DOGE?
It is difficult to confirm whether Elon Musk still owns DOGE as of August 2023. However, based on past social media activity, it is quite likely the “godfather” of Dogecoin still has some holdings.
In 2021, as quoted earlier in this article, Musk tweeted “I haven’t & won’t sell any Doge”. He reiterated this point in 2022 after the emergence of meme coin competitor Shiba Inu, saying he still holds “Ether, Bitcoin, and Dogecoin.” Of course, given the lean crypto winter of 22-23, it’s possible Elon changed his mind and consolidated his holdings. But for now, all signs point toward Musk being a crypto millionaire and still owning a substantial amount of Dogecoin in his portfolio.
A History of Elon And DOGE
Dogecoin stood on its own two (or four) feet for many years before Elon got involved. But once he did, the popularity of the industry’s favorite meme coin went to the next level. There is now a direct correlation between Elon Musk’s tweets and Dogecoin’s price action – at least in the short term.
Elon Musk first paid attention to Dogecoin – publicly, anyway – in early 2019 when he tweeted that “Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency”. The post caused a renewed interest in the coin, but the price of DOGE was basically untouched until well after 2020’s Covid-induced market crash had come and gone.
Perhaps the first instance of Musk seriously influencing the Dogecoin hype train was in December 2020, just as the crypto market was starting to enter its biggest bull run (to date). His contribution to the craze was simple, yet effective.
Dogecoin owners new and old were quick to pounce, with the hysteria created by this three-word tweet causing the price of DOGE to rocket upwards by 20% in less than 24 hours. This was the tweet that created the symbiotic relationship between Musk and Dogecoin’s value. He continued his support for Dogecoin throughout 2021, causing similar price rallies.
The Jan 29 tweet of a magazine named Dogue caused one of the largest Musk-related price hikes in Dogecoin history, with the coin rising 57% in less than 5 hours. He made another three tweets in February 2021, all with a similar effect on the price of DOGE, which was now closing in on the $1-dollar mark.
Things came tumbling down for Elon and DOGE in May that year though, thanks to an ill-fated Saturday Night Live skit. Although it was intended as a joke, Musk calling Dogecoin a “hustle” wasn’t well-received, and the coin plummeted from its all-time high by 29% that same day.
However, Elon made up for this affair when he went public with his plans to take over Twitter. Although the sale of the social media business has incited much controversy and went anything smoothly, it was still positive news for DOGE holders. The price of the coin, which had fallen significantly since May 2021, shot back up by over 100%. The optimism was built on a new-found belief that Musk would integrate the use of DOGE into his version of Twitter – something that is yet to materialize.
Since Dogecoin’s big hurrah in 2021, the coin has trundled along without any major long-term direction. Elon Musk still tweets about the project every now and then, although both the frequency of his advocacy and its impact has slackened.
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Ben Knight
Ben Knight is a freelance writer with a passion for music and finance from Melbourne, Australia. He completed his Master's in Writing, Editing, and Publishing in 2019, following a Bachelor's degree in Creative Writing. Ben has been writing in the finance and cryptocurrency industry for more than three years.
