Is The Bitcoin-Elon Musk Saga Coming To An End? After due diligence, Tesla would most likely start accepting Bitcoin in the near future: Elon Musk
By Saptak Bardhan •
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Elon Musk is one of the pioneers of sustainable energy with Tesla being one of the leaders in the space of clean energy and sustainable power alternatives with the company betting majorly on solar energy. The richest man on Earth, having a valuation of $212 billion, announced in March 2021 that Tesla would be willing to accept payments made in Bitcoin for its electric cars from buyers in the U.S.
Musk had tweeted that Tesla had bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. According to Musk, Tesla's acceptance of Bitcoin had a major uptick in the valuation of Bitcoin which led to more carbon emmissions due to mining and hashing of the cryptocurrency. The very real concern of carbon emissions with the uptick in the prices of Bitcoin made it all the more real for Elon Musk and upon his realization nearly two months after his initial announcement of accepting Bitcoin as a mode of payment for Tesla, he suspended the use of Bitcoin to purchase Tesla cars due to environmental concerns.
"Tesla's mission is to accelerate renewable energy. Tesla is into renewable energy, being a player in solar energy and we are in interaction with wind energy for our battery packs, we knew that one cannot generate that much increase in power using renewable energy that quickly but one can by shoveling coal. The entire thing looked sketchy to me," said Musk in an interaction with Cathie Wood.
According to Musk, Tesla's mission is accelerating the advent of sustainable energy and without due diligence on the energy usage of Bitcoin, Musk suspended the acceptance of the cryptocurrency.
"It appears that Bitcoin is shifting a lot more towards renewables and a lot of the heavy-duty coal plants have been shut down, especially in China. After some due diligence, I would confirm that the percentage of renewable energy usage is most likely about over 50 per cent and that there is a trend towards increasing that number and if so Tesla will start resuming payments in Bitcoin," added Musk.
He also added that after due diligence, Tesla would most likely start accepting Bitcoin in the near future.
