Elon Musk's Tesla halts bitcoin purchases amid concerns of increasing carbon emissions
Story highlights
In a bid to give a boost to digital currency, in March, the electric car company started accepting bitcoin in exchange for electric cars from Tesla
Observing an increase in climate-harming emissions, Elon Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, has decided to temporary suspend payment for cars with bitcoin.
"Tesla has suspended vehicle purchase using Bitcoin. We are concerned about the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel," Musk said in a statement.
Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021
Also read | Elon Musk reveals he has Asperger’s syndrome on ‘Saturday Night Live’
Recently, Tesla shifted towards fulfilling its owner’s dream of making electric cars mainstream and tried to drive people away from combustion engines pumping out emissions contributing to climate change.
In a bid to give a boost to digital currency, in March, the electric car company started accepting bitcoin in exchange for electric cars from Tesla.
"Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this can not come at great cost to the environment," the statement read.
Musk also said that Tesla will not be selling any of its bitcoin and will wait to resume bitcoin purchases and sales only after "mining transitions to more sustainable energy".
Meanwhile, the company is also looking at other options in digital currency that do not harm the environment like bitcoin.