The association with Elon Musk is probably not helpful, but I’m not sure you can blame him for its recent decline. It was doing really well prior to Trump getting inaugurated and then there was a big crash because of high profile rug pulls and tariffs, which impacted altcoins a lot harder than Bitcoin.
Musk going on Joe Rogan’s podcast and basically saying that investing in memecoins is stupid might have caused potential investors to reconsider, but we will have to wait more than 2 months to see the long term effects when compared to the overall market. If Dogecoin is one of the worst performers, then we can definitively say that anti-Musk sentiment was the reason.
Wasn't Elon joking? "Meme" coins are a joke, after all. He could be playing with investors' minds. Anyways, we'll have to see how Dogecoin will react within the short term. Market prices have been going down lately, but it's not because of investors' disappointment with Elon Musk. Rather, it's a response of the on-going trade war between the US, Canada, Mexico, and China. Especially, Canada. Trump promised "reciprocal tariffs" by April 2nd, so this is not over yet.
We should expect more pain for DOGE in the time-being. Good for Elon himself, because now he can buy more Dogecoin at a cheaper price. Would you imagine the "meme" coin hitting $1 in the long term? That would be a dream come true. Crypto land behaves in many strange and bizarre ways, so anything's possible.