Tesla's Bitcoin Investment Could Be Bad For the Company's Climate Reputation and Its Bottom Line

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Tesla's $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin may be good for Elon Musk, but it's definitely risky for the company that made him the world's richest man, according to investors, analysts and money managers at some of the country's largest banks. As a standard bearer for the consumer electric vehicle industry and the broader climate tech movement rallying around it, Tesla's bet to go all in on crypto could damage its climate bona fides and its reputation with customers even as other automakers pour in to the EV market. Given Bitcoin's current environmental footprint, the deal flies in the face of Tesla's purported interest in moving the world to cleaner sources of energy and commerce. Until the energy grid decarbonizes in places like Russia and China, mining bitcoin remains a pretty dirty business (from an energy perspective), according to some energy investors who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak about Musk's plans. "We were talking about people doing this in Russia back in 2018 and how they were tapping coal power to run their mining operations," one investor said. "The cost per transaction from an energy intensity standpoint has only gotten more intense. I don't see how those things coalesce, climate and crypto." The stake makes Tesla one of the largest corporate hodlers of Bitcoin but represents a massive portion of the company's $19 billion in cash and cash equivalents on hand. "Given the size of their treasury it feels irresponsible, IMO," wrote one investor whose firm backed Tesla from its earliest days. The company's move could be seen as another example of the absurdity of U.S. capital markets in today's investment climate -- and the underlying cynicism of some of its biggest beneficiaries. "The announcement that Tesla has diversified its treasury through the addition of bitcoin is not surprising, nor is the assuredness implied by an 8% allocation of cash-on-hand. Equal to Tesla's R&D expenditure for 2020, this investment is significant to the Company and shows a commitment to maximizing shareholder returns," wrote Stillmark founding partner Alyse Killeen. "Elon Musk has a long history of operating at the precipice of what's possible technically and setting the trend of what's to later become common operationally. I suspect the same will be true here, and that Tesla is the first of a larger cohort of publicly-traded companies that will aim to optimize the returns of their cash via bitcoin."

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