Elon Musk renames himself on X, take a look at what the netizens have to say

Elon Musk is known not only for transforming industries but also for his unpredictable social media antics. Whether it’s posting memes, stirring up controversy, or randomly changing his display name, he knows how to keep people talking about him. Now, he’s done it again—this time going by “Harry Bolz” on X. But what’s behind this latest name change, and what could it mean, let's unravel it all, along with the best X reactions.

Who is ‘Harry Bolz’?

Elon Musk has switched his X display name to “Harry Bōlz,” a playful nod to a slang term that had previously made people curious when he first used it in April 2023. At the time, Musk openly joked about his intentions, saying he was just hoping a self-serious media outlet would report on it. Soon after switching back to his original name, Musk shared a follow-up tweet, stating, “An advantage of having organizational affiliation on this platform is that you can change your name without losing verification. More importantly, it helps greatly with reducing impersonation fraud.” The name "Harry Bolz" appears to be inspired by Hanns Bolz, a German painter, sculptor, and illustrator.
Many users see this as yet another example of Musk’s fondness for wordplay and online trolling. This isn’t the first time he’s toyed with unusual names—back in December, he briefly went by “Kekius Maximus,” which was a mix of the popular gaming term "kek" and "Maximus," referencing Russell Crowe's character in Gladiator. However, the reason behind Musk's latest name change remains unclear, Musk had previously explained the joke in a tweet back in 2023.

The context

Just hours after a Musk-led consortium made a $97.4 billion offer to acquire the nonprofit overseeing OpenAI, the 53-year-old Tesla CEO changed his X display name once again. Although, Sam Altman made it clear that OpenAI is not for sale. He reiterated his stance after the news of the offer went public.



On his X account, he wrote, “No thank you but we will buy twitter for 9.74 billion dollars if you want.” Speaking to Sky News at the AI action summit in Paris, Mr Altman repeated the dig at long-standing rival Mr Musk by adding that OpenAI was “happy to buy Twitter though”.

The consequence

The moment Musk switched his display name, an obscure cryptocurrency called Harry Bolz saw a sudden surge, with traders rushing to invest, hoping for a Dogecoin-style breakout. Musk’s influence on meme coins is nothing new—his tweets have previously fueled skyrocketing prices for Dogecoin and other digital assets. However, it remains to be seen if this was a well-thought-out move to manipulate the value of the coin or just another of Musk’s way of sparking conversations about him.

Not just that, Musk’s name change also sparked a meme fest on the internet, let's take a look at some of them: