Although Bitcoin has captured the hearts and minds of amateur gamblers and Ponzi schemers, it’s still an orphan child among most financial managers. Warren Buffett thinks the crypto-currency “will come to a bad ending,” while his long-time adviser Charlie Munger described it as “noxious poison.”
Now, Elon Musk doesn’t fit any stereotype about multibillionaire CEOs — unless you’ve been watching too many Iron Man reruns — but he also doesn’t appear to be on the hype train. He does own a tiny amount of Bitcoin, but as he recently revealed, it’s not even enough to buy new tires for his Tesla.
In a tweet (very) early this morning, Musk said that his friend sent him 0.25BTC a few years ago, but that’s all the crypto he has:
Not sure. I let @jack know, but it’s still going. I literally own zero cryptocurrency, apart from .25 BTC that a friend sent me many years ago.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2018
In another tweet last year, Musk said the same thing, but said he doesn’t even know where the money is. At today’s pricing, the 0.25BTC is worth around $2,500.
Musk was responding to a question about why Twitter has been inundated with fake Elon Musk accounts, all trying to scam users with a very 21st-century version of the old Nigerian Prince scam. Normally, it’s an account set up to look a lot like Elon, which promises to give away 0.2 Ethereum to anyone who wants it, out of the good of his own heart. The only catch is, you have to send 0.02 Ethereum to Elon first, so he knows where to send your money.
Weirdly, the scam has been working, and blockchain records show that a few thousand dollars have been raised so far, at least. Musk said in his tweet that he’s brought the issue to Twitter’s attention before, but nothing has been done. Presumably, they’re too busy banning all those Russian bot accounts and the Nazis.
