NEW YORK – Elon Musk, CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla, said yesterday that the US company will accept bitcoin payments again when the virtual currency is greener.
The American manufacturer caused a sensation in February when it announced that customers could pay in cryptocurrency, an option that became possible at the end of March.
But then Musk changed his mind, indicating that bitcoin was no longer accepted – in the interest of protecting the environment.
“When there’s confirmation of reasonable (around 50%) clean energy usage by miners with (a) positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions,” the billionaire tweeted.
Bitcoin are produced by powerful computers that have to solve equations and consume huge amounts of electricity in the process.
The science journal Nature recently published a study showing that China’s bitcoin mines, which power nearly 80% of the world’s cryptocurrency trade and run in part from coal-fired power plants, risk jeopardising the country’s climate goals.
Musk’s tweet yesterday was reacting to an article raising the possibility that with his tweets, which regularly move the value of bitcoin in one direction or another, he is manipulating market prices for the benefit of his business.
“This is inaccurate,” he said. “Tesla only sold around 10% of holdings to confirm BTC (bitcoin) could be liquidated easily without moving (the) market.
The US automaker announced in early February that it had invested US$1.5 billion (RM6.16 billion) of its ample cash in bitcoin and has since sold part of it. – AFP, June 14, 2021
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