Tesla company announced on Monday that it has bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and allows consumers to pay in bitcoin, which is expected to add fire to the promotion of bitcoin. Bitcoin is in a leading position in the global actual payment application of digital currency.
In a report submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Tesla stated that the reason for buying these bitcoins was to “have more diversification flexibility and expand the return on existing cash”.
Tesla also stated that it will start accepting consumers to use Bitcoin to buy company products, but must comply with relevant laws, and the scale of payments will be restricted at the beginning.
The media pointed out that this will make Tesla the first major car company in the world to accept Bitcoin payments. The 1.5 billion U.S. dollars bought this time in Bitcoin will also allow the company to have enough cryptocurrency liquidity after accepting Bitcoin payments.
Tesla’s purchase of Bitcoin is also another investment behavior of the company in cash assets. According to the latest financial report, as of the end of 2020, the company has $19 billion in cash and cash equivalents.
However, Tesla’s investment move can’t help but make people feel that the company’s head Musk recently tweeted some comments on the website are questioned. Recently, Musk has repeatedly published “positive public opinion” about digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Dogecoin, encouraging people to buy more digital currencies.
Just two weeks ago, Musk added a new hashtag “#Bitcoin” to his self-introduction on Twitter, which caused the value of Bitcoin to skyrocket by 20%. Two days later, in the social software Clubhouse, Musk said: “Now my confirmation is that Bitcoin is a good thing, and I am a Bitcoin supporter.”
Tesla’s announcement on Monday was naturally a positive for Bitcoin. The news led to a record high in the price of Bitcoin, with a currency value of $44,200. In the early trading of US stocks, Tesla’s stock price also rose by 2%. However, in the documents submitted to the SEC, Tesla also reminded investors that large fluctuations in the value of Bitcoin will bring risks.
As we all know, the Twitter site has become a “place of right and wrong” for Musk in the past. He has been punished and litigated many times for his tweets. Among them, in 2018, Musk suddenly announced on Twitter that he would privatize Tesla at a price of $420 per share. This tweet caused a huge controversy. Subsequently, the SEC launched an investigation and accused Musk of fraud.
It remains to be seen how the tweets about digital currencies and Tesla’s buying will affect Musk this time.
In the “privatization storm”, Musk finally settled with the SEC, was forced to give up his position as chairman of Tesla, and paid a personal fine of 20 million US dollars. Tesla also suffered because of Musk’s remarks. A fine of 20 million US dollars.