In spite of being a fan of Dogecoin, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is a noted hater of NFTs.

And now a characteristically cryptic Musk has changed his profile picture to what appears to be a stolen collage of Bored Ape NFTs, inviting drama with the infamously irascible NFT community.

“I dunno… seems kinda fungible,” Musk tweeted, in an apparent mockery of the tech.

The image appears to have originated as a promotional asset for a sale at the famed auction house Sotheby’s by Bored Apes creator Yuga Labs.

Unsurprisingly, Sotheby’s doesn’t seem happy either, with its digital art specialist Michael Bouhanna tweeting at Musk that “as much I admire your work I’d like you to remove your [profile picture] that I created for our Sotheby’s sale.”

“Or you credit me,” Bouhanna suggested. “Happy to send you the original file minted with the buyer approval.”

The NFT crowd also seems irate.

“He is just trolling the NFT community,” wrote one fan. “Bored for sure.”

“Elon Musk literally made a collage of screenshotted bored apes his profile pic to troll NFT owners,” wrote investor Parik Patel.

Musk has long been a foe of NFTs. In December, he mocked the tokens as a sign of mental illness, posting a meme  showing a patient lying on a therapist’s couch. “These ‘NFTs’ — are they in the room with us right now?” a caption above the therapist reads.

Musk also mocked Twitter’s verified, hexagonal NFT profile picture feature, which was rolled out to Twitter Blue subscribers.

“This is annoying,” he tweeted at the time. “Twitter is spending engineering resources on this bs while crypto scammers are throwing a spambot block party in every thread!?”

The picture has, of course, changed significantly since then, with Twitter’s leadership tentatively agreeing to sell the site to Musk.

That’s doubly interesting because Musk has voiced concerns over crypto scams on Twitter on several occasions during the sale proceedings, vowing to put an end to them once and for all. NFTs have been a growing scam magnet in the crypto space, with millions of dollars worth of NFTs being stolen on an almost weekly basis.

Ironically, though, his renewed interest could represent a coup for the NFT, the sales of which have flatlined lately after hitting record highs late last year, The Wall Street Journal reported this week.

In fact, ApeCoin, the token created by Bored Ape creators Yuga Labs, soared 19 percent just an hour after Musk changed his profile picture, according to CNBC.

Will NFTs soar yet again, with more celebrities spending seven figure sums on random JPGs of ugly apes?

As we’ve seen on many occasions in the past, all it takes is a cryptic tweet sent out by Elon Musk.

Elon Musk Twitter profile change briefly sends token of Bored Ape NFT project soaring [CNBC]

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