By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares were just short of 2% down in Monday’s premarket following CEO Elon Musk’s sharp reversal of his stance on Bitcoin (BitfinexUSD), the cryptocurrency he had championed until just last week.
After a Twitter exchange at the weekend hinting that Musk would push Tesla into selling over $1.5 billion of Bitcoin that it bought earlier this year, Musk said Monday that Tesla has not sold any Bitcoin and does not intend to. The exchange has nonetheless hit prices not just for Bitcoin but for most other crypto assets, causing an angry reaction from the online community of crypto enthusiasts.
Since Musk’s first tweet Thursday on not accepting Bitcoin against sale of Tesla vehicles, there was much speculation over the fate of the money the company had invested in February. Tesla's first-quarter earnings had profited to the tune of over $100 million in unrealized profits on its Bitcoin holdings.
Musk last week said the company only intended to use Bitcoin for transactions once its mining transitioned to a more sustainable energy, a move that is in any case symbolic since the vast majority of Tesla cars are sold in fiat currency anyway.
He then went on to lend even stronger support to Dogecoin, a crypto asset that he recently embraced. He said the company is working with Doge developers to improve its transaction efficiency.