Elon Musk, the recently crowned “Technoking of Tesla,” has found another bandwagon to ride.
The founder of SpaceX and Tesla has put one of his Tweets up for sale as a non-fungible token, or NFT. The Internet, as it often does, has gone wild in response.
Bidding for the tweet, which also includes a techno song about (you guessed it) NFTs, stood at $1.1 million as of 3:00 p.m. Eastern time. (That’s quite a jump from the $3 initial bid less than 24 hours earlier.)
Sina Estavi, CEO of Bridge Oracle, holds the high bid right now. It’s not his first time to spend heavily on an NFT. Earlier this month, he spent $2.5 million on the NFT of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first Tweet on the social media site.
The sale of the Musk NFT is taking place on Valuables, a site that requires users to log on via Twitter before listing an item or bidding. Any counter-offer to Estavi’s must raise the price by at least 10%, per the site’s rules.
NFTs have exploded onto the pop-culture scene in the past month. They’re cryptocurrency tokens that represent digital assets, such as image files or video clips, that can be bought and sold. They’re tracked via blockchain, to ensure validity, uniqueness, and value.
Musk’s Tweet/song is a 2-minute-20-second number with a driving beat, featuring the lyrics “NFT for your vanity. Computers never sleep. It’s verified. It’s guaranteed.” The accompanying music video shows a rotating “Vanity trophy” that features the words “NFT” and “Hodl” (a rallying cry of the r/WallStreetBets and cryptocurrency crowds, encouraging each other to not sell) atop a base reading “computers never sleep”.
It’s the latest seeming flight of fancy for Musk, who jumped into the middle of the GameStop trading frenzy with a tweet seemingly supporting r/WallStreetBets in late January. Then, last month, he whipped up cryptocurrency supporters with a tweet about Dogecoin, which caused prices of that digital currency (which was designed to lose value eternally) to soar.