Crypto entrepreneur and alleged criminal Roger “Bitcoin Jesus” Ver is pleading with President Donald Trump for a pardon—but Trump confidant and Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk said that Ver’s renounced U.S. citizenship makes that impossible.
Musk, the tech titan and close President Trump ally—not to mention noted Dogecoin fan and head of the Department of Government Efficiency, aka DOGE—said on X (formerly Twitter) Sunday that Ver would not get pardoned because of the move.
Ver, 46, is facing jail time after the feds last year charged him with avoiding paying $50 million in taxes, along with alleged mail fraud and filing false tax returns. He is now campaigning for President Trump’s help via 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 user’s questions.
Roger Ver gave up his US citizenship. No pardon for Ver. Membership has its privileges.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 26, 2025
The topic of pardons is currently a hot one after President Donald Trump kept his campaign promise and last week released Silk Road founder and Bitcoin enthusiast Ross Ulbricht.
Ulbricht was serving two life terms plus 40 years without parole for running a dark web marketplace that was largely used to buy drugs via BTC. Libertarians, Bitcoiners, and the wider crypto community had lobbied the President to release Ulbricht, arguing that his sentence was too harsh.
Now Ver, one of the earliest investors in Bitcoin, is hoping for the same result from President Trump. On Sunday, he released a dramatic video begging the new commander in chief to clear his charges.
Ver did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s questions. On Monday, he released another clip—lasting 20 minutes—claiming that, “For decades, I’ve been terrorized by rogue U.S. government agents who hate American freedom.”
Crypto entrepreneur Ver earned the name “Bitcoin Jesus” because he used to give away the cryptocurrency for free when it was worth next to nothing, and heavily invested in the cryptosphere’s earliest companies.
But Ver switched to promoting Bitcoin spinoff Bitcoin Cash, and has since been trying to grow the coin. He claims Bitcoin Cash is the “real” Bitcoin, and has rubbed the biggest and oldest cryptocurrency’s community the wrong way with his aggressive marketing.
Ver, who served prison time in 2002 for selling explosives on eBay, renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2014 and became a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis.
Feds nabbed Ver in Spain last year after U.S. authorities ordered his arrest, alleging that he sold Bitcoin in 2017 but had not informed the IRS about the gains he had made.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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