Elon Musk and Tesla Light a Fire Under Bitcoin
Tesla has invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin and plans to soon accept the cryptocurrency from customers who purchase its electric cars, the company said Monday.
The announcement from the automaker, in a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, is a sign of confidence in the cryptocurrency that regulators are concerned could be used for illegal transactions.
"In January 2021, we updated our investment policy to provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash," Tesla said in announcing the $1.5 billion investment.
As a result "we may invest a portion of such cash in certain alternative reserve assets including digital assets, gold bullion, gold exchange-traded funds and other assets as specified in the future."
Tesla will also "begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future," the company added.
The announcement, which helped lift the cryptocurrency to a new all-time high, came just days after Tesla chief Elon Musk briefly changed his Twitter bio to simply read "#bitcoin."
Prices of Bitcoin surged to $43,725.51 around 1300 GMT, before cooling slightly to $42,352.
Tesla acknowledged in the SEC filing that digital assets "may continue to be highly volatile" and vulnerable to "malicious" technology-based attacks.
Regulators and central bankers have reacted cautiously to the latest surge in bitcoin prices.
During her confirmation hearing, newly-installed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said cryptocurrencies are vulnerable to illicit finance.
AI is the Neat Handwriting of the Illiterate
A model in the hands of someone who has read the filing and walked the plant is a clerk. The same model, speaking for someone who has done neither, is a disguise. On AI slop, phantom citations and factslop, why finish stopped being evidence of work, and the containment layer KXCO built so a machine cannot speak as the institution until a source is attached.
Worthship: Do Not Conform to the Age
Worthship is the older English word for worship, and it means to ascribe worth. Bishop Robert Barron preached Romans 12 on 30 August. This essay follows the text into the prison letters, and puts two questions to a graph: do the four readings of that Sunday agree, and was Paul free or in chains when he wrote about despair?
The Truth in All Its Ugliness Must Survive
A majority vote does not determine the truth. Consensus is a mood, gossip is a sport, and a model will write the pretty version for free. Why the ugly number has to survive, why a record beats a dashboard, and what KXCO was built to keep standing when the room changes its mind.
Don't Be the Best, Be the Only: Winning in an AI World
AI is repricing competence downward. What it cannot reproduce is a life. The case for remaining non-fungible, why friction still produces the best ideas, and what it means to build AI systems that keep the human intellect in them.
Every story, signed and delivered.
Subscribe to the kxco channel and get the headline, the AI-written key takeaways, and the chain-anchor link the moment we publish. Audio versions and per-ticker subscriptions arrive in the next iteration.