Does Elon Musk flirt online? Yes, with crypto. On Twitter.
So what happens when he suddenly announces they broke up? The Internet panics, that’s what.
On December 20, 2020, he had gone so far as to tweet “Bitcoin is my safe word.”
The B word is not to be mentioned – Bitcoin and Breakup
But on July 20, 2022, Tesla shocked the world with its earnings report. No, it did not make record-breaking profits, rather it sold off two-thirds of its Bitcoin holdings. The Internet was shocked to say the least.
A hardcore crypto evangelist Musk did not tell anyone about his move until he was forced to do so, through the Q2 earnings report for 2022. People took to Twitter to call him out for reneging on his promise to stick by crypto.
Twitter user @conkerhimself tweeted “but I thought it was the future Elon? Oh dear.. how sad..nevermind.” Meanwhile, @mattsheffield posted “While Elon Musk was pretending to buy Twitter, he was unloading 75% of Tesla’s Bitcoins, despite his promise that “Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin.””
In December 2020, Musk sent Bitcoin soaring on Twitter when he made enquiries about converting “large transactions” of Tesla Inc.’s balance sheet into Bitcoin during a Twitter exchange with Michael Saylor, a digital currency advocate. Following their exchange, the electric carmaker bought $1.5 billion worth of cryptocurrency in February 2021. As news broke about Musk’s sell off, Saylor tweeted “If you sell 75% of your bitcoin, you will only have 25% of your bitcoin left,” seemingly poking fun at the new development.
At the time, it seemed preposterous that Musk would convert Tesla’s holdings into Bitcoin. And now, netizens are enraged that he converted Tesla’s Bitcoin holdings into fiat currency without so much a by-you-leave.
The Aftermath: Tesla Sells Bitcoin
Although tweeple were enraged, shocked, and disappointed, with many resorting to posting memes to give vent to their frustration, there were a few voices of reason that pointed out some fundamental truths.
One such account was of @cz_binance that rightly highlighted the fact that nearly $100 billion worth of Bitcoin gets traded every day. Keeping this in mind, “Someone selling $1 billion is a drop in the ocean.” Tesla added $936 million to its balance sheet after the Bitcoin sale. The world’s most popular cryptocurrency was trading around $24,200 on July 20, but after this revelation its value dropped by almost six percent with the coin hitting $22,700 on July 21.
Trader and Arca’s CIO, Jeff Dorman wrote, “If you’ve ever wondered whether or not trading bots control digital asset trading…keep in mind the entire digital asset market just fell on news that one company (Tesla) sold one asset (BTC) 1-3 months ago.”
Some experts also pointed out that as Tesla is no longer in a position of power for Musk to manipulate the value of Bitcoin, it makes sense for Tesla to sell its holdings. Furthermore, the news also proved that the market is not controlled by trading bots.
Well, it looks like Musk’s relationship with Bitcoin has run its course, but he is still holding out hope for Dogecoin.
Another crypto that seems to be highly favored by the SpaceX CEO is the Dogecoin. In April 2019, he tweeted “Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It’s pretty cool.” According to Decrypt, throughout 2019 to 2020, searches for Dogecoin increased whenever Musk hyped up the coin on social media. The cryptocurrency’s value spiked nearly 27% after Twitter announced the takeover deal with Musk.
In the earnings call for Tesla, while Musk did not reveal his views about Dogecoin’s recent fall, he admitted that “We have not sold any of our Dogecoin.”
