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Bitcoin Businesses The Almighty Buck

Tesla Has Already Sold 10% of Its Bitcoin (msn.com) 81

Posted by EditorDavid from the locking-in-gains dept.
Newsweek writes: Elon Musk has hit back at a critic who claimed he pumped and dumped Bitcoin to "make a fortune" after Tesla reported first quarter earnings that surpassed market expectations... The company appears to have sold 10 percent of its Bitcoin portfolio in the first quarter, which it said had a "positive impact" of $101 million on revenues.

On Monday, Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, called out Musk, CEO of Tesla, on the Bitcoin sale. He tweeted: "So am I understanding this correctly? Elon Musk buys Bitcoin. Then he pumps it. It goes up. Then he dumps it and makes a fortune." Musk replied: "No, you do not. I have not sold any of my Bitcoin. Tesla sold 10 percent of its holdings essentially to prove liquidity of Bitcoin as an alternative to holding cash on balance sheet."

In a transcript of the Q1 2021 earnings call posted by the Motley Fool, Tesla CFO Zachary Kirkhorn said the company intends to hold its Bitcoin investment long-term and called it "a good place to place some of our cash that's not immediately being used for daily operations".

Bitcoin was worth roughly $40,000 in early February at the time Tesla's $1.5 billion investment was reported.
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Tesla Has Already Sold 10% of Its Bitcoin More

Tesla Has Already Sold 10% of Its Bitcoin

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  • "I have not sold any of my Bitcoin" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Sunday May 02, 2021 @07:09PM (#61339614)
    Musk's response is laughable. He didn't sell any of his bitcoin but the company he owns $137 Billion in stock in did, and that's where the real money from a potential pump 'n dump would be made by him.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Just like with trump and not taking a salary.

    • Let's say he did do a pump n' dump.

      Why is that a bad thing?

      Neither Musk nor the government has any fiduciary duty to protect Bitcoin buyers.

      • How convenient.

        • While that's hardly a successful rebuttal in [any] world (nevermind that it doesn't even address the question it purports to be in response to) but as this is about feelings, I'd suggest feeling like you've just received a participation trophy.

        • How convenient.

          Well isn't the whole point of Bitcoin that it's unregulated?

          • Why would anyone want an unregulated monetary system? Unless of course you're incredibly rich and can afford to manipulate said market.

            • Re:"I have not sold any of my Bitcoin" (Score:5, Insightful)

              by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Sunday May 02, 2021 @11:07PM (#61340038)
              Apparently many people want an unregulated monetary system. They think what we have now, that's what we've always had, therefore anything that's different is automatically better. Never mind that the hodge-podge of regulations we have are the result of unfortunate experience. Some people are determined to reinvent the tyre-puncture and relearn the hard-earned experience of previous generations.

              • Truth

                • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

                  by Anonymous Coward
                  Gold was money for 5000+ years for a reason. What we have today is the anomaly.

                  We should not forget the wisdom of those who tried this kind of schemes:

                  As Voltaire famously said, 'Fiat currency always eventually returns to its intrinsic value -- zero.'

                  • Re: (Score:1)

                    by Anonymous Coward
                    Is this what we have today? https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ [wtfhappenedin1971.com]
                  • All currency is fiat.

                    Gold was never money for 5000+ years, and never the sole medium of currency. Plenty of societies have non-gold currencies, and often more popular. Copper. Silver. Paper - almost 1000 years of it. Iron. Shells. Giant fucking stones.

                    Funnily enough, more proof that Slashdot nerds don't study enough history. Fantasy novels and their mountains of gold coins are not history. How much gold exists in the entire world? Wasn't something like two or three olympic size swimming pools? Not a g

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by dasunt ( 249686 )

                Apparently many people want an unregulated monetary system. They think what we have now, that's what we've always had, therefore anything that's different is automatically better. Never mind that the hodge-podge of regulations we have are the result of unfortunate experience. Some people are determined to reinvent the tyre-puncture and relearn the hard-earned experience of previous generations.

                I'm waiting for something like a Soros's 1992 black Wednesday, or the Hunt brothers' silver Thursday.

      • Let's say he did do a pump n' dump.

        Why is that a bad thing?

        When a particular value of a crypto can be raised considerably by just a tweet or couple of tweets from a single individual it proves crypto isn't suitable to be used as a currency which in the case of Bitcoin was it's main goal.

    • Re:"I have not sold any of my Bitcoin" (Score:4, Informative)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Sunday May 02, 2021 @08:16PM (#61339736)

      Tesla sold a small fraction of its bitcoin, it's nothing and it doesn't matter.

    • Re:"I have not sold any of my Bitcoin" (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jklappenbach ( 824031 ) on Sunday May 02, 2021 @09:18PM (#61339862) Journal
      What's laughable is calling the sale of 10% of a holding a "dump". More than likely, TSLA (along with many other large corporations) will be placing increasingly higher percentages of their cash into crypto.

      For TSLA, they won't even need to purchase more to do this. They simply will need to continue accepting $BTC as payment for their cars and services.

      It was not a wise statement for Portnoy to make. Either he understood this reality and was simply trolling in a bid for attention, or he's truly unable to grasp the difference -- a fool in either case.

    • Correct. As mentioned clearly in Elon's tweet... :/

  • I did not murder anyone! (Score:3, Funny)

    by godrik ( 1287354 ) on Sunday May 02, 2021 @07:17PM (#61339634)

    I paid people to murder them!

  • Redonk (Score:1, Insightful)

    by colonslash ( 544210 )

    The charge is ridiculous - selling 10% is not dumping, and advertising you bought the asset AFTER you bought it is not pumping.

    Besides, Musk is the Technoking of Tesla, not the Master of Coin.

    • Re:Redonk (Score:5, Informative)

      by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Sunday May 02, 2021 @08:00PM (#61339714) Homepage

      To the contrary, the essence of pumping a stock is promoting it after you bought some, or at least bought options or derivatives that would yield gains if the stock's price goes up. Nobody pumps a stock simply in hopes of shorting it after marks bid it up.

      • Yes, I got that backwards, but there was no dump - selling 10% of your stake and accepting BTC for purchases is not dumping it. Pump and dump is a short term scheme, but Tesla has long term plans with Bitcoin.

        • The Bitcoin are also marked to market assets, Tesla can loan or sell shares against that. Selling it isn't the only way for Tesla to profit from the pumping. Of course outside Tesla there is even more money to be made with a little early knowledge of Elon's tweets.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      WTF? advertising after purchase is the exact definition of pumping and yes selling even 10% for profit post advertising is dumping.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • So what? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Sunday May 02, 2021 @08:19PM (#61339744)

    A multi-billion dollar company, does things with their money that offers a higher return for what they paid for!

    The system that we live in, is if you have enough money upfront that you don't need to live, you best put it somewhere where it will make more money.
    In order to be rich, you need to get a lot of money, and then invest it. If you don't have money it is much harder to be rich, and you need to get lucky, with some business that can grow fast enough for you to have more money than what you can spend.

    Oh Tesla being a big company, is investing a good chunk of their money, and not holding it in some sort of money bin, they are also probably very creative with filing their taxes so they are not paying anything. The charities they "donate too" often help them out more than they help others...

    Now replace Tesla with any other large company. This isn't really a thing for a Tech and Science site, and more for discussion on a Business focused Web Site.

    • Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday May 03, 2021 @05:35AM (#61340460)

      If it were any other company I'd agree with you. But this is the poster child for the green movement hoping to transition the race away from dependence on horribly polluting forms of transportation and energy production we're talking about.

      When they invest a literal fortune into the dirtiest and least green way of doing ${THING}, then they should very rightfully be absolutely vilified for their actions. If we were talking about an oil company or some evil wall street fuck-the-working-class bankers investing in bitcoin, that would be par for the course.

      We expected more.

      This isn't really a thing for a Tech and Science site

      It has bitcoin, it has a company working on technology to save the world, and it has the end of the world through global warming all rolled into one story. It's absolutely something for this site. If you're after something that is both news for nerds *and* stuff that matters, then this story is it.

  • One will note on Tesla's most recent financial reporting, that without the half billion in carbon credits they sold, the company would, once again, not have turned a profit. Tesla doesn't make money selling cars (and no, don't trot out the margin factor. Margin does not imply profit). They make money selling credits.

    Also note, on their most recent financial reporting, the sale of Bitcoin aided in the company turning a profit [marketwatch.com].

    If you have to sell something other than your product to make a profit, you're n

  • Portnoy's Complaint

  • pump and dump, in normal markets this would bring scrutiny. Thank goodness that bitcoin is unregulated.

    • In the US, Bitcoin has three different reuglatory bodies that regulate some aspects of it, to say nothing of the SEC regulating Tesla activities/disclosures. Musk is probably ignoring them, because laws get in the way of unicorns in his SV mind (yes, I know TSLA is already public and well beyond 1billion, just referring to how he thinks). Like reopening during a pandemic is cool and OSHA is boring.,

  • You can't pretend to be a company worthy of receiving carbon credits for your green credentials and then simultaneously be the single largest corporate investor in the most polluting form of value exchange in history.

    In a sane world the laws would be amended that any holding of bitcoin counts negatively towards your carbon credits, hell tax the heck out of the human stupidity that is proof-of-work.

    • Re:Amend the carbon laws (Score:5, Informative)

      by Lisandro ( 799651 ) on Monday May 03, 2021 @06:28AM (#61340504)

      Been stating the same for a while now. Whatever good Tesla is doing for the world climate, it's being completely negated by this BTC bullshit.

      A single BTC transaction consumes, end to end, 1140 kWh, which is just fucking bananas. To put that figure in context, is the energy consumed by an average US household over a month and a half. Or enough energy to drive a Tesla Model 3, with all long range + performance options, for 3100 miles.

      • Okay, first up, I believe that Bitcoin is ultimately a ponzi scheme.

        However, "A single BTC transaction consumes, end to end, 1140 kWh" is inaccurate. What you might not realize is that a "single BTC transaction" is actually ALL the transactions queued up before the latest mining round. Once a sufficiently good hash is found, the new log is considered "signed" and all the BTC has moved to their new owners. In reward for finding said hash, the winners get 1 BTC, which is included in the system. Then all t

        • TLDR; a "single BTC transaction" can actually be hundreds of transfers.

          Fair, but the figure still applies. Most quotes for per-transaction energy usage are averages, but the point still stands: you cannot perform a BTC transaction without the entire BTC network consuming that amount of energy beforehand. It's just an extension of the truly bonkers energy requirements of Bitcoin as a whole.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      In a sane world bitcoin would be unprofitable to mine with fossil fuels due to carbon taxes, so at least it would be done with renewables which would fund production of more renewables. You wouldn't even have to get to the point of adjusting the vehicle credits.

      • Carbon taxes aren't the end of it. Even if you tax carbon the end result would be mining bitcoin from green energy, but that is still not ideal. Much like plastic waste and the three Rs, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, the goal here shouldn't be to run bitcoin green, it should be to stop wasting a phenomenal amount of energy on what is nothing more than the world's slowest and most energy intensive tool for financial speculation in the first place.

  • Tesla sold $200M worth of BTC and its price dumped from $64K to $48K. I guess that proved that BTC isn't liquid..

    • I was going to ask the same. Is Tesla's big BTC sell correlated with the recent slide in price? Wouldn't surprise me, as Bitcoin is still (relatively) a small market; someone dumping $100m worth of coins there should have that effect.

  • 'Elon Musk has hit back at a critic who claimed he pumped and dumped Bitcoin to "make a fortune"'

    Wow, did he think that there are people investing in Bitcoin who do NOT want to make a fortune?
    2 fortunes?

  • 10 years ago "bitcoin isn't real" 5 years ago "it's a scam" 0 years ago "bitcoin isn't real" 40 years from now "I'm still right and crypto is everywhere and used in everything! down with crypto!"

  • ... BTC was invented as a response to our obviously corrupt and broken financial system. The creator specifically cited the bank bailouts of 2008 as WHY he created BTC.

    Now all these haters are jumping in saying BTC is bad for the planet, Musk is a scammer, etc..

    I'm very wary of Musk and his intentions. I am particularly concerned about Starlink and his self-driving patents. This is real bond villain level global grid control stuff and terrifying.

    But if the FED and the US gov wasn't so blatantly corrupt

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