Should Tesla move to Bitcoin?
Walter Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has sparked speculation his electric car company could add bitcoin to its balance sheet during a public exchange on Twitter.
Musk, the billionaire serial entrepreneur who's ridden Tesla's soaring share price toward the top of the global rich list this year, asked whether it was possible to convert billions of Tesla's dollars to bitcoin.
Musk, the CEO of both Tesla and satellite company SpaceX, was responding to Michael Saylor, the chief executive of MicroStrategy , a business intelligence company that has attracted significant attention in recent months by buying over $1 billion worth of bitcoin.
"If you want to do your shareholders a $100 billion favor, convert the balance sheet from to," Saylor told Musk, replying to a bitcoin meme Musk had posted. "Other firms on the S&P 500 would follow your lead and in time it would grow to become a $1 trillion favor."
Tesla's share price has climbed an eye-watering 730% through 2020 and is poised to enter the S&P 500 on Monday as the sixth most valuable company, placing only behind technology giants Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google parent Alphabet, and Facebook.
Meanwhile, the zcash to paypal
price has added around 235% this year, climbing to never-before-seen highs and ending a three-year bear market.
"Are such large transactions even possible," Musk asked in response, triggering a flood of responses from the bitcoin and cryptocurrency community as well as Saylor, who told Musk he could share his bitcoin-buying "playbook" with him—"from one rocket scientist to another."
Saylor didn't immediately respond to a question asking if he had privately shared any details with Musk.
Saylor's near-$500 million bitcoin bet, disclosed over the summer, has more than doubled in value since then, with the company announcing this month it has raised over $600 million via bond sales to buy more bitcoin.
Musk's interaction with Saylor set the cryptocurrency community alight with speculation Tesla could put bitcoin on its books.
"The internet will break if Elon Musk converts any of Tesla’s balance sheet into bitcoin," Anthony Pompliano, the founder and partner at bitcoin and crypto-focused hedge fund Morgan Creek Digital, said via Twitter.
Peter Schiff, a prominent gold investor and bitcoin skeptic, warned Musk not to "fall for this con."
"Michael, like all involved in the bitcoin pyramid scheme, must recruit new buyers into the scheme to keep it going," Schiff said, adding Musk shouldn't "leave Tesla shareholders holding the same bag as MircroStrategy shareholders."