Just a couple weeks after a pair of tweets from Tesla CEO Elon Musk with Bitcoin breakup memes, the billionaire entrepreneur has shared that Tesla could again start using the cryptocurrency down the line.
Bitcoin’s price rose above $40,000 again on Monday, following comments from Tesla CEO Elon Musk saying that Tesla could start taking the cryptocurrency again once 50% of its mining is done with clean energy, according to Reuters.
In the tweet, which was in response to claims of Musk “manipulating the price” of Bitcoin, though Musk called the assessment “inaccurate.”
This is inaccurate. Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market.
When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 13, 2021
Following the first quarter, and the brief time that Tesla was accepting Bitcoin for car purchases, Tesla saw $272 million in Bitcoin sales earnings right before ceasing to accept the cryptocurrency, and after purchasing $1.5 billion in the digital currency. Alternatively, Musk has been supportive of the meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin, the developers of which have reportedly worked with Musk since 2019.
Musk has been criticized in the past for his words on the internet causing cryptocurrency prices to rise significantly, with Bitcoin’s 10% jump between Sunday and Monday helping the coin reach $40,692.27 being the first time the coin has touched $40,000 in a few weeks – and not long after the crypto reached $60,000 earlier this year.
