Elon Musk is notorious for his short and powerful tweets that normally sends the crypto community into a frenzy. Elon Musk tweeted “Dogecoin is the people’s currency” and “no highs, no lows, only Doge” at the start of February 2021, causing the price of Doge to spike exponentially, from less than a cent to 5 cents. The Dogecoin ‘hype train’ has started and is catching on. Everyone was getting FOMO and joined the market to get profit.
On May 13th, 2021, Musk, a long-time, vigorous advocate for cryptocurrency, shockingly announced that his car company, Tesla, will stop accepting Bitcoin due to the environmental implications of mining it.
Hyping up crypto, then not accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment for his own products, many people see it as a ‘rug pulling’ scheme by Musk. However, since then, Elon Musk has continued to express his support for crypto and remains the ‘face’ of this movement. He attended crypto-focused events such as the ‘B-word’ conference in July. He is adamant that the decisions he makes are for the sustainable long-term future of the world.
Of course, it is difficult to know what Musk really thinks. What we know is the types of crypto he owns and the public crypto transactions that he has made. Let’s dive into Elon Musk’s crypto portfolio.
Musk’s companies’ holdings
Elon Musk’s two most famous companies are SpaceX (a company that builds spaceships for space exploration) and Tesla (an electric car manufacturer).
In late January, the latter invested $1.5 billion dollars into buying Bitcoin, soon after announcing that it will accept Bitcoin as a payment method. This investment seems to be a way of gaining trust from consumers by ‘jumping on the same boat’ as them. Although this is only less than 1% of Musk’s net worth, it is a large enough sum to show that Musk is committed to crypto and this was not a scam.
Musk revealed at the B-word conference that his other company, SpaceX, also owns Bitcoin. However, the exact amount and the time that it was acquired were undisclosed.
Musk’s personal holdings
In 2018, Musk revealed that he owns virtually no cryptocurrency and only “0.25BTC” that was sent to him by a friend a couple of years back. So what changes can we observe in his crypto portfolio three years on?
Musk publicly revealed that he primarily owns three types of cryptocurrency: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin.
By owning the two cryptocurrencies with the largest market cap and greatest potential to replace centralized fiat, Musk shows his stance in support of a decentralized currency. With his capital, investing and actively using cryptocurrency will increase liquidity and help legitimize its usability.
Musk is a big supporter of Dogecoin. Replying to a question on Twitter asking why he likes Dogecoin to the extent he does, he said simply: “I love dogs & memes”.
Although he does not specify the proportion or amount of crypto he owns, Musk admits that he owns “a lot more Bitcoin than Ether and Doge”.
Final verdict
Musk has come out and made statements such as: “I might pump, but I don’t dump”, and has publicly invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin from a company that he owns and is CEO of. In addition to that, he reveals the coins he is holding and the reason for choosing them. He shows a thorough understanding of the world of crypto and participates actively in events and discussions on social media.
Nevertheless, the lack of transparency of his holdings (even though he is entitled to have his privacy) does leave some questions unanswered in a doubter’s mind.
