 |
| Elon Musk. Source: (Creative Commons License). |
Some of his fans reply to his tweets with crypto-memes, with repeated calls of 'to the moon!". This catchphrase has significant meaning when applied to Musk, as he is building a spacecraft called Starship that NASA will use to put its astronauts on the surface of the moon.
This is hardly surprising for an entrepreneur that created an online payment company. He has been closely associated with Dogecoin, which is often linked to dog memes on social media. The crypto started as a joke in 2013, and Musk started tweeting about it around 2019. Due to his reputation as a successful businessman and his oversized social media reach, Dogecoin value has increased more than once after he tweeted about it.
Musk's crypto portfolio, however, is diversified. He owns Bitcoin, Ether, and Dogecoin. He has a specific reason for supporting Dogecoin, which he explains:
Lots of people I talked to on the production lines at Tesla or building rockets at SpaceX own Doge. They aren't financial experts or Silicon Valley technologists. That's why I decided to support Doge -- it felt like the people's crypto.
Musk appears to be involved with dogecoin more than just as a trader, as he mentioned working with the developer. He has also joked about the crypto becoming the future reserve currency.
Even Musk's dog, a Shiba Inu, has been associated with another crypto named Shiba Inu, but the world's richest man says he hasn't bought the crypto.
The association of Musk with cryptos extends to his businesses. For example, earlier this year, Tesla announced it would accept payment for its cars in crypto. However, the plan was shelved because Musk seems to think the amount of energy needed to mine cryptos causes environmental pollution, which is disputed and also against the goals of Tesla as a company if true.
However, the pollution caused by crypto mining does not stop Tesla from building its own crypto portfolio. Its SEC filing in February 2021 showed the company bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin and might buy more in the future.
Despite his penchant for cryptocurrencies, Musk has this warning for would-be traders:
As I've said before, don't bet the farm on crypto! True value is building products & providing services to your fellow human beings, not money in any form.