Elon Musk Is No Longer "The King of Meme Coins" As Before: Has the Era of Dominance Ended?

For a long time, Elon Musk – tech billionaire and CEO of Tesla – was considered the most powerful "wave maker" in the world of meme coins. With just a tweet or profile picture on the social networking platform X (trước this is Twitter), he once inflated the value of Dogecoin (DOGE) and a series of other "fun" cryptocurrencies, causing their market capitalization to increase by billions of dollars. However, in 2025, there are many signs that Musk's influence on the meme coin market is weakening markedly. GORK: The "Reappearance" Not As Expected On May 4th, Elon Musk caused a stir in the community when he changed his profile picture on X to an image related to "Gorklon Rust" – a new meme. Immediately, the GORK coin – a meme coin on the Solana platform – witnessed a strong price surge, with market capitalization increasing from 45 million USD to 75 million USD. However, just a few days later, GORK fell back to 65 million USD and is now only around 35 million USD according to data from CoinGecko. An analyst commented: "It's hard to believe that even when Elon Musk changes his profile picture, it can't help GORK surpass the 100 million USD mark. This has never happened before." Continuous Signs of Weakness In fact, GORK is not an isolated case. In February 2025, when Musk unexpectedly changed his account name to "Harry Bōlz," the HARRYBOLZ token only reached a market capitalization of about 9.5 million USD. Previously, in December 2024, he had used the name "Kekius Maximus," but the KEKIUS coin also only peaked at about 88 million USD – a modest figure compared to the heyday of DOGE. Another analyst said: "Elon could once increase the market capitalization by billions of USD with just a single tweet. But now, even attention-grabbing actions like changing his profile picture only add less than 50 million USD to the market capitalization of small meme coins. The market is becoming increasingly immune." Why Is Elon Musk No Longer "Divine" With Meme Coins? Altcoin liquidity declines: Investors are no longer willing to pour money into new tokens just because they are mentioned by Musk. The spread of liquidity is too thin, making it difficult for coins to reach impressive milestones as before. The explosion of meme coin numbers: The market is currently flooded with meme coins, with hundreds of new tokens appearing every week – especially on the Pump.fun platform. When a figure like Musk "shills" a token, dozens of copies immediately appear, splitting the cash flow and overshadowing the original. Decreased trust: The continuous emergence of (clone) tokens – which are often just "pump and dump" projects – has made the community more cautious. This significantly undermines the psychological effect that previously helped Musk "pump" successfully in the past. Dogecoin Is Still an Exception Although the new meme coins recently did not achieve the expected explosion, DOGE – the "spiritual child" supported by Musk from 2020 to 2021 – still maintains a certain position. DOGE once increased by billions of USD in market capitalization just from a simple tweet from Musk, laying the foundation for today's meme coin trend. However, that period came with a speculative boom and strong FOMO money flow, which the current market no longer has. Conclusion: The Meme Coin Era of Elon Musk is Gradually Coming to a Close Elon Musk remains a highly influential figure, and each of his moves can still impact the market. However, this impact is diminishing in both scale and duration. The inability of tokens like GORK, KEKIUS, or HARRYBOLZ to maintain their price increase indicates that the investment community has gradually become "immune" to meme tactics, while also being more cautious with what was once considered "magic" from Musk. Can Elon Musk reshape the meme coin market once again, or is this the bell tolling for the end of an era? Time will tell.