Elon Musk denies claims Tesla is getting involved in bitcoin

Elon Musk has said Tesla has no plans to get involved with bitcoin at the moment, believing that the cryptocurrency is not an efficient use of the company’s resources.

The Tesla chief executive praised cryptocurrency as a potential replacement for paper money in an interview on FYI, a podcast by ARK Investment published today.

“Crypto is much better way to transfer value than pieces of paper,” he said.

Musk’s comments echo those of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, who tipped bitcoin as the best candidate to become the internet’s “native currency” on a podcast with Joe Rogan earlier this month.

He conceded that it has both positive and negatives aspects. “I think one of the downsides of crypto is that it is very energy intensive to create at this point,” he said.

Musk said that although he thinks the structure of cryptocurrencies is “brilliant”, he won’t be getting involved with it for the time being, saying that he didn't think it would be a “good use” of the electric car-maker’s resources.

The news comes on the back of several mainstream endorsements of cryptocurrency in recent days. Yesterday Mark Zuckerberg said that he was considering using blockchain-based authorisation of user data on Facebook. Last week JP Morgan Chase announced that it is designing its own cryptocurrency

Although Musk said that he has friends that are “really involved in crypto,” he owns none himself, saying he owns none himself, other than a quarter of a bitcoin that someone gave him years ago. This is worth $972.74, according to data from Luxembourg-based Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp.

Tesla accounts for about eight per cent of ARK Investment holdings.