‘Bitcoin Jesus’ Roger Ver Begs Trump for Pardon—But DOGE Chief Elon Musk Says Nope

Crypto entrepreneur and alleged legal Roger “Bitcoin Jesus” Ver is pleading with President Donald Trump for a pardon—however Trump confidant and Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk stated that Ver’s renounced U.S. citizenship makes that inconceivable.

Musk, the tech titan and shut President Trump ally—to not point out noted Dogecoin fan and head of the Department of Government Efficiency, aka DOGE—said on X (previously Twitter) Sunday that Ver wouldn’t get pardoned due to the transfer.

Ver, 46, is dealing with jail time after the feds final yr charged him with avoiding paying $50 million in taxes, together with alleged mail fraud and submitting false tax returns. He’s now campaigning for President Trump’s assist by way of social media posts. 

“Roger Ver gave up his U.S. citizenship,” Musk, the world’s richest man, wrote on X. “No pardon for Ver. Membership has its privileges,” he added in response to an X consumer’s questions.

The subject of pardons is at the moment a scorching one after President Donald Trump stored his marketing campaign promise and final week released Silk Highway founder and Bitcoin fanatic Ross Ulbricht. 

Ulbricht was serving two life phrases plus 40 years with out parole for operating a darkish net market that was largely used to purchase medication by way of BTC. Libertarians, Bitcoiners, and the broader crypto group had lobbied the President to launch Ulbricht, arguing that his sentence was too harsh.

Now Ver, one of many earliest buyers in Bitcoin, is hoping for a similar end result from President Trump. On Sunday, he released a dramatic video begging the brand new commander in chief to clear his prices. 

Ver didn’t instantly reply to Decrypt’s questions. On Monday, he released one other clip—lasting 20 minutes—claiming that, “For many years, I’ve been terrorized by rogue U.S. authorities brokers who hate American freedom.”

Crypto entrepreneur Ver earned the title “Bitcoin Jesus” as a result of he used to offer away the cryptocurrency at no cost when it was value subsequent to nothing, and closely invested within the cryptosphere’s earliest corporations. 

However Ver switched to selling Bitcoin spinoff Bitcoin Cash, and has since been making an attempt to develop the coin. He claims Bitcoin Money is the “actual” Bitcoin, and has rubbed the most important and oldest cryptocurrency’s community the wrong way together with his aggressive advertising and marketing.

Ver, who served prison time in 2002 for promoting explosives on eBay, renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2014 and have become a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis. 

Feds nabbed Ver in Spain final yr after U.S. authorities ordered his arrest, alleging that he bought Bitcoin in 2017 however had not knowledgeable the IRS in regards to the positive factors he had made.

Edited by Andrew Hayward