Tesla Was 'Very Ignorant' Of Environmental Impact Of Bitcoin, Says Kimbal Musk

Kimbal Musk, a board member of Tesla and the brother of CEO Elon Musk, has said that the company had been "very ignorant" of the environmental impact of Bitcoin when it announced that it would purchase $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency.

“We had no idea of the environmental impact, we literally didn’t know, we were like this seems like a good store of value and a good way to diversify assets. And of course, it didn’t take very long to get a million — I’m not kidding probably a million — messages telling us what we were doing to the environment,” said Kimbal Musk in an interview with Techcrunch.

Musk, who served on Tesla’s board since 2004, said that the company didn't "necessarily regret" its Bitcoin purchase. However, he hopes that companies in the blockchain industry should move toward more environment-friendly infrastructure.

Tesla’s decision to buy Bitcoin last year made the cryptocurrency bullish though that surge was reversed months later by the company’s announcement of not immediately accepting Bitcoin for the sale of its vehicles.

Bitcoin was trading 9.35 percent lower at $35,291 as of 2.53 a.m. ET, CoinMarketCap data showed.

Even as countries like China have cracked down on Bitcoin mining, a recent report suggested that Bitcoin mining revenue rose 206 percent in 2021.

The Block Research's 2022 Digital Asset Outlook Report published last month noted mining revenue spiked the most in March, when miners brought in some $1.75 billion, including $167 million in transaction fees.