Musk becomes 'Gorklon Rust' on X—What's behind this new identity?
What's the story
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has updated his display name on X to "Gorklon Rust" and also changed his profile picture accordingly.
Musk's new display name and profile picture have created quite a stir on social media.
The billionaire also tagged Gork, a parody account of his AI chatbot Grok, in a post about this change.
Gork humorously responded, saying it looked good but questioned if he had to copy his entire face like that.
Twitter Post
Conversation between Gorklon Rust and Gork
looks good i guess
— gork (@gork) May 4, 2025
but did u have to copy my whole face like that smh
Social media reaction
What social media users believe about this new change?
Social media users speculate that the new name combines "Grok" and "Rust."
"Grok" refers to the AI chatbot developed by Musk's xAI, while "Rust" likely points to the Rust programming language, which is said to be integral to the company's tech infrastructure.
Some have even connected his new name to GORK-themed memecoins, which have seen a massive spike in value after Musk's move.
Coin surge
GORK meme coins see surge in value
Musk's new avatar sparked a sudden surge in Solana-based New XAI Gork (GORK), which soared 76% within ten minutes of his X post, according to CoinMarketCap.
Another meme coin, Gork AI Agent (GORK), skyrocketed massively over the past 24 hours.
Musk's name change comes just as he announced that artificial intelligence (AI) will be integrated into X to enhance the user experience on the platform.
"The X recommendation algorithm is being replaced with a lightweight version of Grok," he said.
Previous changes
Musk's history of playful name changes
This isn't the first time Musk has changed his name on the social media platform he acquired in 2022.
Back in December 2024, Musk had adopted the moniker Kekius Maximus, possibly referencing a meme-inspired cryptocurrency called Kekius.
This move triggered a surge of over 500% in the coin's value within hours.
The name was later changed to Harry Bolz in February this year, marking the second time the billionaire adopted this alias, having briefly used it in April 2023.