Elon Musk becomes Kekius Maximus (again!); sparks crypto surge

Billionaire Elon Musk has once again changed his display name—this time reverting to Kekius Maximus. Accompanying the update is a new profile picture, depicting Musk clad in armour with the title "Emperor Kekius Maximus" written on it.

Musk briefly adopted the same name in December, likely drawing inspiration from the memecoin Kekius Maximus. And just like the last time, the name change has coincided with a sharp surge in the coin’s value—rising by 142% as of 11:30 am on May 17, according to The Crypto Times.

Back in December, the coin experienced an even more dramatic rally, spiking 497.56% within 24 hours.


Who is Kekius Maximus?

The character of Kekius Maximus blends the meme icon Pepe the Frog with Russell Crowe's heroic character Maximus, from the film Gladiator.

The name also seems to be in reference to a meme-based cryptocurrency token called KEKIUS. Rooted in internet culture and heavily influenced by the 'Pepe' meme, KEKIUS has been gaining traction in the crypto market, as reported by The Times of India.

After changing the name, Musk reposted a user’s comment on X: “Legacy Media trying to find Elon Musk on ��, and suddenly he comes out like: 'My name is Kekius Maximus Reevius Memius, the Dogefather, and Commander of �� shitposters. Kekius Maximus is back!'"

This update comes less than two weeks after Musk briefly changed his name to 'Gorklon Rust', possibly a reference to Grok—the chatbot developed by his AI company xAI—and Rust, a programming language reportedly integral to xAI’s backend. His profile picture at the time also changed to what appeared to be a distorted version of the Grok logo.

The name Gorklon Rust may also have been a nod to the memecoin GORK on the Solana blockchain, which, like Kekius Maximus, saw a price spike—jumping nearly 100% in 24 hours, as reported by Outlook Business.