By Mat Di Salvo
2 min read
Elon Musk and Donald Trump are getting chummier—but they aren’t bonding over crypto just yet, according to the Tesla CEO.
Tech billionaire entrepreneur and electronic car extraordinaire Musk said Thursday that he and the former president have never talked about crypto policy, contrary to a Bloomberg report.
“Pretty sure I’ve never discussed crypto with Trump, although I am generally in favor of things that shift power from government to the people, which crypto can do,” wrote Musk in response to the article.
Despite years of public bickering, that same report said that Trump and Musk are becoming closer. Even though the presumed GOP nominee for the U.S. election in November used to condemn Bitcoin, he’s now pro-crypto.
For its “Musk Counsels Trump on Crypto” report, Bloomberg cited “a person familiar with the talks.”
Musk has become a figurehead in the crypto sphere. In 2020, he started pumping Dogecoin, a joke cryptocurrency, on Twitter. His tweets helped the digital asset grow a cult following and its market cap surged—now at $26.3 billion, it’s the ninth biggest virtual coin in existence.
Musk’s company Tesla put Bitcoin on its balance sheet in 2021. It then sold some of the asset, and stopped accepting it for crypto payments, citing environmental concerns. Tesla still holds 9,720 Bitcoins, today worth $673 million.
Trump said years ago that he wasn’t a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Now his campaign accepts donations in a number of coins and tokens as he has become friendly to the space—described by some as a turning point in both crypto policy and U.S. politics.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
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