“I wanted a little bit more due diligence to confirm that the percentage of renewable energy usage is most likely at or above 50%, and that there is a trend towards increasing that number, and if so Tesla would resume accepting Bitcoin,” said Musk, echoing a statement he’d tweeted in June. The BBC noted this caused the price of Bitcoin to surge past the $30,000 mark. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency is valued at $31,899. For those keeping score at home, here’s a brief timeline of events: Tesla had started accepting payments in Bitcoin for its cars in March, a move that caused cryptocurrency’s price to surge that day from just over US$39,000 to US$46,000 that day. The EV maker then paused Bitcoin payments in May, with Musk citing concerns about the “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels” used in mining the cryptocurrency.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021 On June 13, Musk said the company would bring back the option to buy Tesla cars with Bitcoin when clean energy usage by cryptocurrency miners approached 50%. The oft-outspoken CEO didn’t specify any sort of time frame for this. However, he did reveal that he owned Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin, and that he is indeed a cryptocurrency optimist. “I might pump, but I don’t dump… I definitely do not believe in getting the price high and selling… I would like to see Bitcoin succeed,” he said.
