REUTERS/Mike Blake
- Elon Musk on Wednesday said he is a supporter of bitcoin and wants to see the cryptocurrency succeed.
- “If the price of bitcoin goes down, I lose money. I might pump but I don’t dump,” Musk said during “The B Word” event.
- Musk spoke on the panel alongside Twitter chief Jack Dorsey and Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood.
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Elon Musk on Wednesday detailed his thoughts on cryptocurrencies, saying on a live panel that he is a supporter of bitcoin and would like to see the asset succeed.
“If the price of bitcoin goes down, I lose money. I might pump but I don’t dump,” Musk said during “The B Word” event, which also featured Twitter chief Jack Dorsey and Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood.
He continued: “I definitely do not believe in getting the price high and selling or anything like that. I’d like to see bitcoin succeed.”
The Tesla boss also admitted that he holds “far more” bitcoin than dogecoin or ether.
“The doge community I think is somewhat irreverent obviously … and it doesn’t take itself too seriously,” he said. “The most ironic and entertaining outcome would be that the cryptocurrency that was started as a joke to make fun of cryptocurrencies ends up being the leading cryptocurrency.”
Apart from cryptocurrencies, he said he only owns stock of Tesla and SpaceX, and confirmed that both companies hold bitcoin in their balance sheets.
The energy consumed by bitcoin mining came under the microscope in May after Musk abruptly suspended the purchase of Tesla vehicles using bitcoin due to environmental concerns.
Since then, his influence over the cryptocurrency community has waned somewhat.
But Musk insisted his reticence on bitcoin’s energy usage is not financially motivated.
While he doubled down on the negative impacts of bitcoin mining on the environment, he did say during the panel that Tesla is open to accepting bitcoin as payment again.
“I do think long-term renewable energy will actually be the cheapest form of energy. It just doesn’t happen overnight,” he said. “But as long as there is a conscious and determined and real effort by the mining community to move towards renewables, then obviously Tesla can support that.”
Cryptocurrencies, led by bitcoin, have struggled recently to rebound from a massive crash in May when the value of the total market dropped by nearly half in just seven days.