After Tesla Co-Founder and CEO Elon Musk made a series of questionable cryptocurrency-related tweets on Sunday (December 20), MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor tweeted to him that it would be a good idea to use Tesla’s cash to buy Bitcoin.
Here are two examples of Musk’s tweets:
In response, Saylor, whose company has so far “purchased over $1.3 billion in #BTC” (for use as MicroStrategy’s main treasury reserve asset) in the past few months, suggested that it would be in the interests of Tesla’s shareholders if Musk did the same thing:
“If you want to do your shareholders a $100 billion favor, convert the $TSLA balance sheet from USD to #BTC. Other firms on the S&P 500 would follow your lead & in time it would grow to become a $1 trillion favor”
And he went on to advise Musk privately how to do this:
Well-known gold bug Peter Schiff, who is one of Bitcoins harshest critics, did not appreciate Saylor’s offer of help/advice one bit:
However, Binance Co-Founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (aka “CZ”) feels that it is only a matter of time before Tesla buys crypto:
According to Tesla’s Q3 2020 earnings report, the company ended the quarter with $14.5 billion in cash and cash equivalents.
Although Musk has in the past expressed interest in Bitcoin (and crypto in general) in podcast interviews and on Twitter, due to the huge amount of scrutiny Tesla is always under, it seems unlikely that Musk will consider following Saylor’s example in the short term even though MicroStrategy already has made a huge (unrealized) profit on its Bitcoin investments.
However, if the Bitcoin price keeps going up and more and more institutions buy Bitcoin as an inflation hedge, it is not inconceivable that at some point in the future Tesla buys Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset.
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.
