Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey & Cathie Wood Discussion on ‘The B Word’
Tesla CEO Elon Musk discussed Bitcoin during a live-streamed session of The ₿ Word event with Square and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Ark Invest CEO and CIO, Cathie Wood. Here’s what they talked about so far.
Elon Musk’s Stance on Bitcoin and Crypto
Elon Musk said that he supports and holds Bitcoin, and revealed that his aerospace company SpaceX also has invested in Bitcoin.
Musk said:
“[Bitcoin] has an open ledger, which is quite good. But transaction volume is low, transaction cost is high and usability for the average person is not yet very good but has a lot of potential
But on balance I support Bitcoin… I do own bitcoin and Tesla owns bitcoin, SpaceX owns bitcoin.”
The Tesla and SpaceX leader has made mixed public statements about Bitcoin in the past, calling himself a supporter, seeing Tesla purchase $1.5 billion worth of BTC, renouncing the ability for Tesla customers to make purchases in bitcoin over misguided environmental concerns, then somewhat flipping his coat on those statement.
Musk is an outspoken supporter of the top meme coin: Doge.
During the panel, he continued to tout alternative cryptocurrency projects like Ethereum and Doge, but also acknowledged that Bitcoin’s throughput and scalability could be improved via Layer 2 platforms like the Lightning Network.
Bitcoin Energy Consumption
Musk has hinted that the crypto industry is on its way toward greener future, but Tesla won’t be accepting Bitcoin payments just yet.
Musk said that Tesla would “most likely” consider resuming crypto payments for its vehicles — a policy the CEO said the company would be stopping in May — but said he needed to exercise diligence before making a decision.
“There appears to be a positive trend in the energy usage of Bitcoin,” said Musk, also expressing skepticism at the speed at which the network had moved towards green energy sources. “There’s just no way you could basically double or triple the amount of energy in such a short period of time with renewables […] Tesla’s mission is accelerating sustainable energy. We can’t be the company that does that and not do appropriate diligence on the energy usage of Bitcoin.”
“Bitcoin with a Layer 2 system could scale to do a vast number of transactions,” Musk said. “I want to do a little more diligence to confirm that the percentage of renewable energy usage [in bitcoin mining] is most likely at or above 50% and that there is a trend toward increasing that number, and if so Tesla will resume accepting bitcoin… Most likely, Tesla would resume accepting bitcoin.”
Musk: ‘I Might Pump, But I don’t Dump”
The billionaire also noted that the only significant assets he personally owns consist of stock in his companies, bitcoin, ether and doge, with bitcoin being the largest and most profitable of his cryptocurrency holdings.
Musk also addressed some of the allegations from professionals that he had orchestrated a pump-and-dump scheme given his social media posts on cryptocurrencies including BTC and Dogecoin (DOGE). He said the only three assets “of any significance” that he owned outside of SpaceX and Tesla stock were BTC, DOGE, and Ether (ETH), and that neither he nor Tesla had sold any Bitcoin since the announcement stopping crypto payments.
“If the price of Bitcoin goes down, I lose money,” said Musk:
“I might pump, but I don’t dump. I definitely do not believe in getting the price high and selling it or anything like that.”
Musk was joined in the session, “Bitcoin As A Tool For Economic Empowerment,” by Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey, ARK Investment Management CEO Cathie Wood and Square Crypto Lead Steve Lee, who moderated it.
Dorsey, who has publicly been a long time advocate of Bitcoin, highlighted Bitcoin’s transformative nature as a currency that is global, permissionless and native to the internet.
Dorsey explained his enthusiasm on Bitcoin:
“When I saw Bitcoin in 2009, you see a chance to replace the whole foundation.”
“It really just opens the aperture and that is what I want to see in my lifetime, is a currency that is standard and sound for the internet that everyone can use.”
Wood, whose firm has been stocking bitcoin more this month, emphasized bitcoin’s current value propositions from an investment standpoint and the remarkable economic outlook of its development community.
Wood said:
“The store of value is a very big role, and means of exchange with apps built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, we think are going to become more of a reality.”
“I’ve had the honor of meeting Bitcoin Core developers”
“They know economic history better than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Interest in the panel was sparked when Musk agreed to participate with Dorsey via a Twitter thread in June. Musk’s attendance was confirmed by The ₿ Word on July 19, just 3 days before the event.
The ₿ Word was hosted by the Crypto Council For Innovation, a group formed with the intent of lobbying legislators and securing more support for cryptocurrency businesses.
