Michael Saylor Takes Shot at Elon Musk on Twitter Over Tesla’s $936M Bitcoin Sale

Shortly after EV manufacturer Tesla disclosed it had sold three quarters of its Bitcoin holdings, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor took to Twitter to publicly do the math.

“If you sell 75% of your bitcoin, you will only have 25% of your bitcoin left,” Saylor tweeted.

The MicroStrategy CEO appeared to be poking fun at the announcement from Elon Musk’s company that it had traded 75% of its Bitcoin holdings for approximately $936 million in fiat currency over the past few months, as revealed in its Q2 earnings report.

One of Bitcoin’s loudest advocates, Saylor has repeatedly emphasized MicroStrategy’s own commitment to Bitcoin, even as the crypto market slumped in 2022. The software manufacturing company owns 129,699 Bitcoin (worth around $2.9 billion at current prices); Saylor has stated that the firm "structured its balance sheet" so that it can continue to hold Bitcoin "through adversity."

MicroStrategy has continued to buy the dip during the crypto bear market; in June, Saylor revealed that the company had bought another 480 Bitcoin for around $10 million, at an average price of around $20,000 per coin.

Tesla and Musk have had a more on-off relationship with Bitcoin since the company bought $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency in February 2021—after Saylor offered Musk advice on how to purchase Bitcoin. The move sent Bitcoin’s price rocketing to $43,000, an all-time-high at the time, as Musk took to Twitter to champion Bitcoin and Dogecoin.

At the time of its investment, Tesla announced that customers would also be able to buy its cars with Bitcoin, but a few months later the company reversed its stance, citing the cryptocurrency’s high energy consumption and environmental impact.

However, the company said it would continue holding on to its Bitcoin, and would reinstate Bitcoin purchases when mining transitioned over to using more sustainable energy sources. A week later, Musk tweeted “diamond hands” emojis, typically used by investors to suggest that they’re in it for the long term. Today, Saylor posted the same series of emojis, in another apparent reference to Musk.

On Tesla’s latest earnings call, Musk explained the company had sold its position in Bitcoin because of the financial turbulence caused by lockdowns in China. He said, “It was important for us to maximize our cash position.”

Musk also said he and Tesla are open to increasing the company’s ownership of Bitcoin in the future and that Tesla has not sold any of its investment in Dogecoin. On the call, the billionaire emphasized that cryptocurrency is "a sideshow to the sideshow" for Tesla.

"This should not be taken as some verdict on Bitcoin," he said. "We're neither here nor there on cryptocurrency."