Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur and CEO of Tesla, has long been a trendsetter in meme coins. His endorsements often cause tokens like Dogecoin (DOGE) to surge. However, his latest "Gorklon Rust" joke stimulated a price increase, but cannot be compared to previous frenzies.
With GORK unable to reach a market capitalization of 100 million USD, market watchers are questioning: Is Musk's influence on meme coins gradually declining in 2025?
Musk's Influence on Meme Coins Is No Longer the Same, According to Analysts
On 04/05/2025, Musk switched to "Gorklon Rust" and used an avatar related to GORK on X, sparking interest in the Solana (SOL)-based meme coin. However, it still could not reach a market capitalization of 100 million USD.
"It's crazy that even Elon Musk changing his avatar no longer has a significant impact. GORK went from 45 million USD to 75 million USD in market capitalization, and now it has dropped to 65 million USD," an analyst wrote.
Many others share the same view, emphasizing the declining impact of Musk's jokes.
"Alt liquidation status: Elon Musk, with 200 million watchers, promoting a meme — just pushing it up slightly over 50 million USD," analyst Him added.
This is not the only incident. In February 2025, Musk temporarily changing his name to Harry Bōlz pushed the HARRYBOLZ token to a market capitalization of only 9.5 million USD. Moreover, in December 2024, when Musk endorsed "Kekius Maximus" as his username, the market capitalization of KEKIUS barely exceeded 88 million USD.
Similarly, when the CEO shared a Dogefather meme, many similarly named tokens were created. However, none of these tokens could reach a value of 100 million USD.
In contrast, Musk's continuous support for DOGE often stimulated significant price increases for this dog-themed meme coin during 2020–2021. This added billions of USD, not just millions, to its value. Beyond DOGE, many other meme coins also benefited from Musk's mentions.
"Elon is truly the most powerful influencer in the world right now when it comes to launching meme coin movements. He has inspired/fueled the world's largest meme coin movements primarily through a few tweet lines: doge, Shiba Inu, FLOKI, etc.," a user posted in September 2024.
However, recent data tells a different story. The discrepancy suggests Musk's influence is no longer easily expandable. While he can still stimulate short-term price increases for smaller tokens, pushing meme coins to 100 million USD or more seems increasingly difficult.
"Notice how Elon Musk once moved billions in market capitalization with just one tweet, and now even changing his avatar can't add 50 million USD to low-trading meme coins. This means people are really getting tired and moving on to the next meme coin," analyst Ajay Kashyap said.
That's not all. Even when Musk stimulates a price increase, profits are only temporary. The rapid rise and fall of GORK is a typical example. Its market capitalization has dropped to just 35 million USD at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko data.
"Either this still has time to develop, or Musk no longer has the same impact on the meme coin market as DOGE in 2021," another analyst stated.
Meanwhile, a market watcher emphasized that Elon Musk's impact on the cryptocurrency market, especially with meme coins, is unlikely to remain as significant as before.
He noted that the conditions when Musk's influence peaked were very different from the current market. The cryptocurrency space has seen an increase in meme coin numbers, and thus, capital has been distributed across multiple assets, reducing the potential impact of Musk's endorsements.
Notably, Musk's moves often trigger a wave of copycat tokens, such as Gorklon Rust and Kekius Maximus copies, appearing on platforms like Pump.fun.
These copies diminish the performance of the original token by dividing investment capital and causing confusion. This trend also damages perception, as copies often become pump and dump schemes. The increase in copies weakens trust in tokens Musk promotes, limiting their potential.
Therefore, although Musk still has the ability to generate some market interest, the era when he single-handedly drove meme coins to extraordinary valuations may have passed.
