Elon Musk says Tesla will no longer accept Bitcoin over climate change fears
Elon Musk has claimed Tesla will no longer accept Bitcoin over climate change fears.
The CEO said his electric car company is “concerned” about “rapidly increasing” use of fossil fuels for the cryptocurrency.
But the firm intends to use it for car transactions as soon as it switches to more sustainable energy, he said in a tweet.
Bitcoin plunged by more than 10% after the statement on Twitter.
Tesla shares also dipped, according to the BBC.
The move follows criticism from environmentalists after Tesla announced in March it would accept Bitcoin.
It had also revealed it had bought £1billion of the cryptocurrency.
But in a statement posted on Twitter, billionaire Musk said the business would not sell any of it.
He posted: “Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin.
“We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.
“Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment.
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“Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.”
He said the firm is “also looking at other cryptocurrencies” which use less than 1% of “Bitcoin’s energy/transaction”.
Some Tesla investors and environmental campaigners have been increasingly critical about the way bitcoin is created or “mined”.
The process involves high-powered computers competing to solve complex mathematical puzzles in an energy-intensive process that often relies on fossil fuels, particularly coal.
Laith Khalaf, a financial analyst at fund platform AJ Bell, said: "Tesla and Bitcoin were always odd bedfellows, given the environmental credentials of the electric car maker, and the colossal amount of energy consumed by the cryptocurrency.”
According to analysts from Deutsche Bank, if bitcoin were a country, it would use about the same amount of electricity a year as Switzerland does.
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