Tesla CEO Elon Musk took bitcoin for another wild ride overnight.
The rollercoaster began when Musk clashed with Twitter users Sunday afternoon who were questioning his recent criticisms of bitcoin.
At 1:21 p.m., Musk responded to one such thread, saying, “Obnoxious threads like this make me want to go all in on Doge.”
At that point, bitcoin was trading at about $46,341 per coin, according to data from coinmarketcap.com. Then, at 2:48 p.m, Musk appeared to imply in a tweet that Tesla, which announced it bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in February, either had sold all of its holdings or planned to.
By midnight, the price of b itcoin had fallen to $43,145, or by about 7 percent.
And it didn’t end there.
At about 1:56 a.m., Musk clarified that Tesla has not sold any bitcoin, sending the price up to about $44,900, but not recovering all of the day’s losses.
The various exchanges came just days after Musk said the company would no longer accept bitcoin as payment for its cars, citing concerns about the use of fossil fuel for bitcoin mining. That put Musk into contention with other bitcoin-boosters, including Mark Cuban.
Musk has long been viewed as a champion of cryptocurrencies. Tesla’s embrace of bitcoin in February was viewed as a major step toward institutional acceptance of the digital currencies.
Since then, other major US companies and banks have leaned into the space, helping to drive the value of the market higher, though some investors have criticized the crypto market as a bubble.
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