Elon Musk's Tesla Buys $1.5 Billion Of Bitcoin Causing 14% Spike

Elon Musk's car firm Tesla has said it bought approximately $1.5bn of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin and expects to start accepting it as payment in the near future.

News of this has caused Bitcoin’s price to increase 14% to $43,968, a record high. It comes days after Mr Musk added "#bitcoin" to his Twitter profile page which drove up the price. This was removed within a few days but raises concerns about market manipulation, something Musk has been guilty of in the past. The SEC charged Musk back in 2018 with securities fraud for ‘a series of false and misleading tweets about a potential transaction to take Tesla private.’

Tesla announced that the purchase was trying to maximise returns on cash that isn’t being used in day-to-day running of the company. In a recent stock market filing the electric motor company said it "updated its investment policy" in January and now wanted to invest in "reserve assets" such as digital currencies, gold bullion or gold exchange-traded funds.

The filing also said "We expect to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis, which we may or may not liquidate upon receipt.”