In this file photo Tesla CEO Elon Musk talks to media as he arrives to visit the construction site of the future US electric car giant Tesla in Gruenheide near Berlin on September 3, 2020. Odd ANDERSEN / AFP
In this file photo, Tesla CEO Elon Musk talks to the media as he arrives to visit the construction site of the US electric car giant Tesla in Gruenheide near Berlin on September 3, 2020. PHOTO: Odd ANDERSEN / AFP
Elon Musk, the owner of the electric car maker, Tesla, on Thursday announced that a Tesla vehicle can now be bought with the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.
Mr Musk disclosed this in a series of tweets posted on his official Twitter handle on Wednesday.
“You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin,” he tweeted.
You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2021
The business magnate said further that, “Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly.
“Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency.
“Pay by Bitcoin capability available outside the US later this year,” he said.
This tweet by the business magnet has sent the price of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency soaring.
Last month, the electric carmaker Tesla invested $1.5 billion in the virtual unit, while Twitter chief Jack Dorsey and rap mogul Jay-Z said they are creating a fund aimed at making Bitcoin “the internet’s currency”.
Others jumping on the bandwagon include Wall Street player BNY Mellon, investment fund giant BlackRock, and credit card titan Mastercard.
Bitcoin, which was launched back in 2009, hit the headlines in 2017 after soaring from less than $1,000 in January to almost $20,000 in December of the same year.
Musk The ‘Tecknoking’
Elon Musk according to Forbes is working to revolutionise transportation both on Earth, through Tesla – and in space, via rocket producer SpaceX.
On Tuesday, last week, Tesla crowned him with a new title: Technoking.
The company’s chief financial officer, Zach Kirkhorn was also given the title “Master of Coin,” Tesla said Monday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Norm-shattering entrepreneur Musk, who has more than 41 million followers on Twitter and a fortune now estimated at more than $180 billion, has had frequent conflicts with regulators at the SEC and is not shy about tweaking them on social media.
The entrepreneur also recently waded to the new online fascination with digital art forms known as “NFTs,” virtual objects that can be sold with a certificate of authenticity proving that they are, in theory, non-piratable thanks to the blockchain technology that was popularized by cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
Musk also announced on his Twitter account that he would be selling a video clip of techno music about NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, as an NFT.
The cryptocurrency website Cointelegraph said bidding on the NFT had risen to $100,000 in the first hour after Musk made the announcement, even though Musk has not actually put the song on the market yet.
