Elon Musk Gets Into Twitter Spat Over NFT Art
Sotheby’s auction house was not happy with Musk’s new profile pic.

Dimitrios Kambouris
Billionaire tech mogul and rabble-rouser Elon Musk, who’s in the midst of a multi-billion dollar deal to buy Twitter, got into another one of his frequent scraps on the platform on Wednesday when he temporarily changed his profile picture to a screenshot of NFT art collectively known as the “Bored Ape Yacht Club.” Last September, Sotheby’s sold the collage in question for $24.4 million. Michael Bouhanna, Sotheby’s co-head of digital art, replied to Musk on Twitter requesting that he take down the image. “@elonmusk as much I admire your work I’d like you to remove your pfp that I created for our Sotheby’s sale,” Bouhanna wrote. “Or you credit me 😂. Happy to send you the original file minted with the buyer approval.” Thirty minutes later, Musk, who didn’t respond to Bouhanna directly, tweeted, “I dunno … seems kinda fungible.” Shortly afterwards, he changed his profile picture.
@elonmusk as much I admire your work I’d like you to remove your pfp that I created for our Sotheby’s sale. Or you credit me 😂. Happy to send you the original file minted with the buyer approval 🫡 pic.twitter.com/e83ZyxWGH5
— Michael Bouhanna (@michaelbouhanna) May 4, 2022
Register below to read this article for free or subscribe
to unlock unlimited access to The Daily Beast.
Monthly
$1
First month then $5.99/month
Annual
$35
First year then $59.99/year
Premium
$79
First year then $119.99/year
*Substack access provided by the next business day, using your subscription email. Choosing the Premium plan constitutes your permission to share your subscription email with Substack and your agreement to Substack’s Privacy Policy.
Already have an account? Sign In
Looks like you already have a subscription!
You're all set!
Thanks for subscribing.