Elon Musk Adds Bitcoin to Twitter Profile, Tweets: "In retrospect, it was inevitable"

Tech mogul and the world’s richest person Elon Musk apparently joined the ranks of Bitcoin proponents.

Less than an hour ago, Musk changed his status on Twitter to the Bitcoin hashtag and seemingly suggested that his involvement in Bitcoin was inevitable in a cryptic tweet. He wrote:

“In retrospect, it was inevitable.”

While Musk has not openly declared himself a "bitcoiner," the recent tweet seems to be hinting at it, given the recent Twitter status change. As shown by an internet archive backup, Musk changed his status at some point in the last six hours.

Following the tweet, Bitcoin suddenly and immediately rushed upwards—registering a nearly 17% increase in under an hour, according to Coingecko data.

Bitcoin price in the last 24 hours. Source: Coingecko

Musk’s apparent endorsement for Bitcoin comes after the Tesla chief expressed his frustration about developments unfolding surrounding the Reddit-born forum Wall Street Bets, whose members drove up the price of some of the most-shorted stocks on the market, including Gamestop and AMC, resulting in losses worth millions on the side of hedge funds that had reportedly shorted more shares than were on the market. The price rally was stopped when stock exchange Robinhood prevented its users from buying GME, among a number of other stocks, on Thursday. The move resulted in an abrupt price drop and outrage among retail investors, who were forced to watch from the sidelines while hedge funds continued trading.

Musk sided with retail investors at the time, commenting that it was "bs" that the funds had been able to sell stocks they didn't own and criticizing short sells:

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev on Friday said that the exchange had limited trading to meed "financial requirements." Some have noted, however, that Citadel, the parent company of one of the hedge funds that are badly affected by the short squeeze, accounts for a large portion of Robinhood's revenue, causing speculation about a potential collusion. Tenev has denied these allegations.

Musk had promoted the r/wallstreetbets Subreddit on Tuesday with the caption "Gamestonk!!"

UPDATE (Fri, January 29th, 10:01PM UTC): Added additional information.