The CEO of Tesla Elon Musk has shaken the finance world once more, and the consequences could impact Bitcoin. Via his Twitter account, Musk asked his followers if he should sell 10% or around $25 billion of his company’s stocks as a result of potentially new tax requirements on unrealized gains to be implemented in the U.S.
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The Tweet was posted less than 2 hours ago, and it has already received over 1 million votes with 21 hours still to go. 54.2% of participants voted Yes on Musk’s proposal to sell his stocks, the rest have opposed the proposal. The car manufacturer asked:
Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this? I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes
The tweet has received a lot of comments from Bitcoin and crypto investors. Some asked Musk to reinstate BTC payment for the company’s products, others celebrated the potential attention that such massive sell could receive from U.S. regulators as a “bullish” sign for the crypto market.
Bitcoin investor Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano replied:
If you sell $20B+ of stock, the government will be able to fund themselves for a few minutes with the tax payment you’ll make. They’ll celebrate like you balanced the budget though
However, the majority of repliers want Musk to put more capital either into BTC or their favorite crypto project. Speculating about this potential Bitcoin purchase, financial analyst Kevin Paffrath noted that Musk’s brother sold over $100 million of his Tesla stock on Friday, November 5th.
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Paffrath wondered if Musk’s brother was notified about the poll and questioned the executive’s motives to cash out $25 billion of his company stock. To pay taxes or to please his followers, both seem uncharacteristic of Musk.
What Could Happen To Bitcoin If Elon Musk Sell His Tesla Stocks?
In that sense, Paffrath wonders if the executive would use the money to buy Bitcoin based on 4 reasons. First, Musk would be inclined to transform the money from cash into other assets due to “inflation fears”.
Second, Bitcoin is possibly one of his biggest investments. At least, one of the biggest he has revealed. Third, since Musk sold all of his real states seems unlikely that he would put money into a property. Finally, Paffrath added:
We expect $BTC to come back as payment acceptance for $TSLA cars. I think $12-13b is going into crypto. This is pure speculation on my part thought. Maybe BTC / ETH split? Or SHIB DOGE? I see Musk as a bit more conservative on $ (money) though so I’m betting on BTC, or at least that many institutions could speculate that.
In February 2021, the car manufacturer announced a $1.5 billion allocation in Bitcoin. As a result, the benchmark crypto experienced a massive rally from the high $30,000s to its previous all-time high at $65,000.
Therefore, the speculation has created a lot of hype amongst crypto users as many remember the impact that Musk seems to cause in the space and his influence over retail investors.
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Commenting on Elon Musk’s Tweet, the CEO of MicroStrategy and Bitcoin bull Michael Saylor said the following:
If the goal is diversification, an alternate strategy to consider is converting the $TSLA balance sheet to a Bitcoin Standard and purchasing $25 billion in $BTC. That would deliver diversification, inflation protection, & more upside for all investors in a tax efficient manner.
As of press time, Bitcoin trades at $61,632 with sideways movement in the daily and weekly chart.
