We found out yesterday that Tesla isn’t Fiat. But how exactly did it spend $1.5bn of its reserves buying up bitcoin? There are some clues here:
The screenshot’s taken from a post on the r/Bitcoin subreddit, made by a user called u/TSLAinsider. Note the time stamp — it was shared more than a month ago, way before Elon Musk let the public in on what had been going on. Hmm . . .
Of course, there’s the possibility that u/TSLAinsider is not who they say they are (a software developer working in Tesla’s research and development team). But, if they have indeed been involved in Tesla’s bitcoin purchases, then the legality of such a post seems pretty questionable to us. If the numbers they refer to in the post are correct, they were revealing this at a time when $819m had already been spent.
That’s a chunky figure which, as u/TSLAinsider predicted, would move markets once it was out there in the public domain. The bitcoin price has indeed shot up following Musk’s declaration, hitting a record high of more than $48,000 earlier today.
It appears u/TSLAinsider is less concerned:
We’d ask Tesla to comment, but seeing as they haven’t got a press office, we can’t.