Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and billionaire, changed his display name to "gorklon rust" on X (formerly Twitter) and updated his profile picture with a meme inspired by Gork.
This move triggered a surge in Gork-themed tokens. Additionally, several new "gorklon rust" tokens were quickly created, with some experiencing price increases of up to 7000%. Notably, Gork's followers on X rapidly increased from around 86,000 to over 113,000.
MEME Coin Market Strongly Reacts to Elon Musk's 'Gorklon Rust' Name Change
Notably, Gork is a parody account of Grok, the AI chatbot from xAI. Famous for humorous and unique responses, Gork has secured loyal followers on X, including Musk. The Tesla CEO announced the display name change on May 4th and posted:
"Sup Gork changed my pp to urs wdyt."
Gork further fueled the viral moment with a response to Musk's post.
"Looks good, I guess. But did u have to copy my whole face like that smh," Gork wrote.
Subsequently, meme coins related to the "gork" theme experienced unprecedented volatility with a surge in market activity. According to DexScreener, the meme coin New XAI Gork (GORK) surged by 58.7%.
Its market capitalization exceeded $64 million. This token ranked second on CoinGecko's trending list.
However, the excitement did not stop there. Soon after, several new meme coins were created with the "gorklon rust" label. According to the latest data, these small tokens surged between 4000% and 7000% within 24 hours.
Their trading volume surged, reflecting the speculative interest triggered by Musk's actions.
However, the high interest seems to be cooling quickly. Several tokens have experienced price drops in the past hour, highlighting the high volatility and risk of meme coin trading. Sudden reversals are as common as rapid surges.
Meanwhile, this incident reflects Musk's previous meme-driven market movements. In late 2024, adopting the "Kekius Maximus" persona led to a 504% rise in the KEKIUS meme coin.
Similarly, Elon Musk's username change to "Harry Bolz" triggered a 3000% surge in the HARRYBOLZ meme coin in February 2025, according to BeInCrypto. Additionally, Musk's "Dogefather" actions led to significant gains in related tokens.
While Musk's latest move created buzz and profits for some, it emphasizes the speculative nature of meme coins, with gains potentially being as fleeting as the trends driving them.
