At the start of 2025, X users may not have seen many tweets from Elon Musk. On the other hand, in recent hours, “Kekius Maximus” has multiplied viral publications on the social network. His profile picture? The image of a cartoon frog, sitting and dressed in Roman attire, all with a games console in his hand. The founder of Tesla and Space identify.
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The billionaire, a fervent supporter of US President-elect Donald Trump, is used to these outbursts on social networks, which are always more or less decipherable. But this time, his choice to mysteriously change his name on his own platform – which he had already renamed from Twitter to X after his takeover in 2022 – raises several questions. What could the controversial businessman mean by this maneuver?
Far-right meme and reference to “Gladiator”
First step to try to understand a little better the drivers of this change: dissect the new name adopted by Elon Musk on the network. “Kekius Maximus” uses the word “kek”, an interjection similar to the acronym “lol” (laughing out loud), but used by many far-right activists and accounts on the web. The second part of the name, that is to say “Maximus”, seems to refer to a character from “Gladiator”, a famous film by Ridley Scott released in 2000. In this feature film, the Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius, played on screen by Russell Crowe, becomes a gladiator and takes revenge for the death of his family.
This reference to cinematic culture goes hand in hand with the profile image chosen by Elon Musk after changing his identity on his account. The drawing of a frog which appears there, this time dressed in a Roman fighter's costume, is known to Internet users in far-right circles as a very widespread meme called “Pepe the frog” (Pepe the Frog). First from a classic comic strip, the character was misused on the web by white supremacists and the entirealt-right American, becoming a “hate signal”, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an American association which fights against anti-Semitism.
The value of a cryptocurrency that climbs in a few hours
Should we therefore only see in this image a symbol linked to the American extreme right? Elon Musk seems to want to cover his tracks. Tuesday, December 31, before his pseudonym change, he simply indicated in a message: “Kekius Maximus will soon reach level 80 in hardcore PoE”. PoE is an apparent reference to the popular video game Path of Exile.
Another track could also give a final motive to this virtual movement. The value of the memecoin Kekius Maximus – a cryptocurrency inspired by a meme – soared by nearly 1,400% on the last day of 2024. Did Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, especially want to offer a publicity stunt? The tycoon is a long-time supporter of cryptocurrencies.
READ ALSO: A reserve of bitcoins in the United States? “It would be like betting against the dollar”
In November, his appointment by Donald Trump to lead a future mission to improve “governmental efficiency” of the American federal administration had already caused the price of another parody cryptocurrency, dogecoin, to explode. The reason? Elon Musk is one of the main supporters of the development of the latter.
As this new buzz on social networks shows, Elon Musk is a fan of names that are atypical to say the least. The choice of first names for some of his children is a perfect example. One of his daughters, born in 2019, is called X Æ A-12 (since renamed X Æ A-XII after a court decision), while one of his sons, born in 2023, is named Techno Mechanicus , called “Tau”.
