Elon Musk is a boss troll. The Tesla founder announced on Monday, Feb. 8 that his company bought bitcoin for $1.5 billion (€1.25 billion) in January and even plans to accept the bitcoin as payment for its electric cars. vehicle, and thus the price of the first cryptocurrency soared. It’s over $45,000 and one bitcoin will shortly purchase the entry-level Tesla Y.
Companies have begun to take an interest in it, and BlackRock, the world’s No. 1 asset manager, no longer excludes it as a way to diversify their portfolios. But Bitcoin has never had such trust. Because it’s not just the managers of the first automaker’s huge ($800 billion) pool by market capitalization that make this new capital investment: it bears the stamp of the boss of Guru, who has become a Twitter heavyweight Influencer, a social network enhances the herd reaction of stock market participants, particularly small shareholders.
Musk had previously promoted bitcoin by mentioning it on Twitter in December, where he has 46 million subscribers. He did so again on Feb. 6, citing another Dogecoin: The value of what he calls “the future currency of the planet” doubled in one day. The liberal and disruptive he is not happy to be a fan of cryptocurrencies, under the nose and beard of financial institutions that are wary of them. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was the first to accuse them of being “primarily used” to fund illegal activities.
Both Bitcoin (+300%) and Tesla stock (+450% in a year) seem to be getting carried away in the same movement of irrational exuberance. Social networks are beginning to amplify this drift! Swiss analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya advised in an interview with Reuters: “Bitcoin’s high volatility will inevitably lead to volatility in Tesla’s earnings and make the firm’s performance unstable.” The slot machine will proceed to “spit” out the same amount of cash.
Bitcoin and Tesla are very distinct. The first is still close to raw materials like gold, even though its promoters claim to earn real money from it. That’s not the case with Tesla’s actions, whose surge — exaggerated, of course — is based on splendid industrial and commercial success: vast orders and four gigafactories (US, China, and Germany) for battery and vehicle assembly. Musk didn’t become the richest man in the world, his empire was built on tweets and sand.
