Elon Musk has been accused of manipulating the price of Bitcoin by economist Nouriel Roubini. In an interview with CoinDesk, Roubini says that it’s “criminal behaviour” for Musk to take an individual stance on the crypto.
This comes after Tesla invested $1.5 billion into the cryptocurrency, causing Bitcoin to reach a record high of $47,000.
Commenting on @Tesla‘s $1.5 billion bitcoin buy on #CDTV First Mover this morning, @Nouriel said it’s “criminal behavior” for Elon Musk to take an individual stance on bitcoin to pump up the price before announcing Tesla’s investment.
“Talk about a criminal enterprise.” pic.twitter.com/aSHPX5ayHM
— CoinDesk (@CoinDesk) February 10, 2021
According to Roubini, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should investigate the Tesla CEO. “The SEC should be looking into people that have a market impact that manipulate the price of assets. That’s also criminal behaviour.”
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In response, European Central Bank’s former VP, Vitor Constâncio tweeted that the SEC will look into this.
Telsa to Accept Bitcoin as Form of Payment
The electric car manufacturer says that it will “begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment” for its products in the future.
In a report, Telsa says “in January 2021, we updated our investment policy to provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash that is not required to maintain adequate operating liquidity. As part of the policy, we may invest a portion of such cash in certain specified alternative reserve assets.”
“Thereafter, we invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin under this policy. Moreover, 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.”
According to The Verge, Tesla customers have been “calling on founder and CEO Elon Musk to accept bitcoin for vehicle purchases”.
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