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I do not think the circumstances are the same, John McAfee received payments from new projects to promote their coins and there are even some accusations that he dumped some coins after posting his tweets while Elon Musk is just posting some tweets regarding his holdings, while the difference may not seem to be that important I think it is, so Elon does not have anything to worry about, John McAfee on the other hand will have a difficult time proving his innocence.
when you have a big name in a certain industry, whatever words come from your mouth can be a business quote, and influence many people.
you will be targeted because you are a KOL.
Elon with his company bought a huge amount of BTC a few days ago. he could be targeted by SEC because of the indirect shilling activity with his tweets, trying to influence, or driving the hype.
I said this because, in my country, celebrities who talk about stocks recommendation or something like that, could be targeted by the regulation.
however, I am still thinking about the opposite side. why big names who talked sh*t about bitcoin never have any problem? it can influence people with misleading information, right?