Tesla Announces $1.5 Billion Bitcoin Investment and Plans to Accept Cryptocurrency Payments

Tesla, fresh off impactful cryptocurrency-centered tweets from CEO Elon Musk, has announced a sizable investment in bitcoin.

In an SEC filing shared to the Tesla website on Monday, the company noted it had updated its investment policy in January to provide for greater flexibility in further diversifying and maximizing returns on its cash “that is not required to maintain adequate operating liquidity.” Per that policy, Tesla may invest a portion of that cash in alternative reserve assets including digital assets, gold bullion, gold exchange-traded funds, and more.

As revealed in the same filing, Tesla has invested an aggregate $1.5 billion in bitcoin under the aforementioned policy. The company also said it expects to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for their products “in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis.”

As CNBC pointed out in its report on this Tesla development, the bitcoin move marks an investment of a palpable percentage of its cash. At the end of 2020, the company is said to have had more than $19 billion in cash and cash equivalents on hand.

In recent days, Musk has been tweeting heavily about Dogecoin. As of Monday morning, the cryptocurrency was up a reported 28 percent at a price of $0.08072.

During a discussion on the Clubhouse app earlier this month, Musk was asked about his support of bitcoin, prompting him to predict its continued growth in the near future.

“I think bitcoin is really on the verge of getting broad acceptance by conventional finance people,” Musk said at the time.