Tesla cars can now be bought with bitcoin, Elon Musk says
TESLA customers can now buy vehicles with bitcoin, the electric carmaker’s boss Elon Musk said yesterday, marking a significant step forward for the cryptocurrency’s use in commerce.
“You can now buy a Tesla with bitcoin,” Musk said on Twitter, adding that the option would be available outside the US later this year.
The electric-car maker said last month it bought $1.5 billion (about R22.3 bn) worth of bitcoin and would soon accept it as a form of payment for cars, in a large stride toward mainstream acceptance that sent bitcoin soaring to a record high of nearly $62 000.
Bitcoin, the world’s biggest digital currency, rose more than 4% after Musk’s tweet and was last trading at $56 429.
Musk said bitcoin paid to Tesla would not be converted into traditional currency, but he gave few other details on how the bitcoin payments would be processed. The company was using “internal open source software”, he said.
Most mainstream companies such as AT&T and Microsoft that allow customers to pay with bitcoin typically use specialist payment processors that convert the cryptocurrency into a currency and send the sum to the company.
Like other cryptocurrencies, bitcoin is still little used for commerce in major economies, hampered by its volatility and relatively costly and slow processing times.
Musk, who regularly posts comments on Twitter about cryptocurrencies, last month criticised conventional cash, saying when it “has negative real interest, only a fool wouldn’t look elsewhere”.
He had said that the difference with cash made it” adventurous enough” for the S&P 500 company to hold the cryptocurrency.
Following Tesla’s investment in bitcoin, companies including Mastercard and Bank of New York Mellon have embraced the emerging asset, sparking predictions that it and other cryptocurrencies would become a regular part of investment portfolios.
Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said the ride-hailing company discussed and “quickly dismissed” the idea of investing in bitcoin. However, he said Uber could potentially accept cryptocurrency as payment. General Motors said it would evaluate whether bitcoin could be accepted as payment for its vehicles.