Elon Musk has repeatedly touted dogecoin, including earlier this month when he said Tesla would accept the cryptocurrency as payment for some merchandise.
Photo:
Hannibal Hanschke/Associated Press
Elon Musk
wants
McDonald’s Corp.
MCD -1.16%
to start accepting dogecoin for payment.
“I will eat a happy meal on tv if @McDonalds accepts Dogecoin,” Mr. Musk, chief executive of
Tesla Inc.,
TSLA -1.25%
said in a tweet Tuesday morning. He has repeatedly touted dogecoin, including earlier this month when he said Tesla would accept the cryptocurrency for payment for some merchandise.
The price of dogecoin rose 7% on Tuesday, according to CoinMarketCap.
McDonald’s later tweeted “only if @Tesla accepts grimacecoin,” in reference to the purple character featured in some of the fast-food company’s advertising campaigns. Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Musk’s tweet came after cryptocurrency prices—including dogecoin—have fallen sharply in recent days. The selloff prompted McDonald’s to tweet on Monday: “how are you doing people who run crypto twitter accounts.”
Dogecoin, initially started as a joke in 2013, is currently in the top 10 by market value for cryptocurrencies, according to CoinMarketCap. Its value tends to fluctuate based on what Mr. Musk says about the volatile cryptocurrency.
When pressed to explain what dogecoin was during a “Saturday Night Live” performance in May 2021, Mr. Musk, who was hosting the show, eventually said, “Yeah, it’s a hustle,” which sent the cryptocurrency’s price falling.
The price of dogecoin has lost roughly 80% of its value since Mr. Musk’s SNL appearance.
In addition to accepting dogecoin for payment for some merchandise, Tesla last year bought $1.5 billion in bitcoin. While Mr. Musk initially said Tesla would also accept payments in bitcoin, the company later suspended that initiative after Mr. Musk expressed concerns about high levels of fossil-fuel use for bitcoin mining.
Write to Omar Abdel-Baqui at omar.abdel-baqui@wsj.com
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Appeared in the January 26, 2022, print edition as ‘Musk Urges McDonald’s to Take Dogecoin Payments.’
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