- A Dogecoin co-creator slammed Elon Musk after the Tesla CEO said bitcoin's energy use is "insane."
- The comments come after Musk said Dogecoin was the "future of currency" on SNL.
- Jackson Palmer, one of Dogecoin's creators, also tweeted that the "SNL episode was cringe, bro."
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
A co-creator of Dogecoin called Elon Musk a "self-absorbed grifter" in a tweet that has since been deleted after the Tesla CEO stopped allowing customers to pay for vehicles in Bitcoin.
According to multiple Twitter users who captured screenshots of the tweets and shared them on the social media platform, Jackson Palmer said "Reminder: Elon Musk is and always will be a self-absorbed grifter." He also warned in a follow-up tweet that he would be "removing this in 1 min as that's all I have to say and I enjoy the quiet life."
In a third tweet, he also said "ps. SNL episode was cringe, bro," referring to Musk's appearance on Saturday Night Live last weekend.
The blog Zero Hedge also reported on the posts. Tesla did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Palmer, who created the digital Dogecoin currency in 2013 with fellow software engineer Billy Markus as a joke, says he has not been involved with the Dogecoin project or the cryptocurrency market "in many years," according to his website. His late Thursday night posts surprised users who rarely hear from the self-described "product & data geek based in San Francisco."
-🟩Preston Pysh🟩 (@PrestonPysh) May 14, 2021
-notsofast (@notsofast) May 14, 2021
-𝑊𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑦🩸 (@wendykauri) May 14, 2021
-Holmes The Trader (@yat_fx) May 14, 2021
Palmer's tweets come after the Tesla CEO announced the company was halting payments via bitcoin for its vehicles. The suspension was due to the negative environmental impact of mining cryptocurrency, which requires increased use of fossil fuels.
"Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment," the company said via a tweet posted by Musk. He also said the trending energy usage of Bitcoin over the past few months is "insane."
After Musk made the comments, bitcoin plummeted as much as 15%.
Read more: How Elon Musk's tweets created a new economy
Palmer's tweets also follow Musk's appearance hosting SNL, during which he called Dogecoin the "future of currency" and predicted that it will "take over the world," as Insider's Allan Akhtar reported.
Musk has long publicly voiced his support for cryptocurrency, including supporting investing in Dogecoin. Tesla also reported buying $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in February, per CNBC, when it said it planned to start accepting the currency as payment.
On Thursday evening, Musk tweeted that he was working with Dogecoin developers to "improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising."
Musk's net worth has dropped by $25 billion after the events of this week.