The user’s original post stating that Tesla was buying bitcoin attracted little attention when it appeared on January 2.
A Reddit user who said in a post a month ago was an insider at Tesla Inc and knew about the electric car maker’s purchase of bitcoin said on Tuesday that his claims were not true.
The user’s original post stating that Tesla was buying bitcoin attracted little attention when it appeared on January 2. But it received a second look on Wednesday, the day after the automaker and its CEO Elon Musk released a $ 1.5 billion investment in the cryptocurrency that sent bitcoin to fresh highs.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the user’s identity or whether his initial or subsequent claims were accurate.
Tesla did not respond to an email to its press office.
“I am a software developer working in R&D at Tesla in California, in the past 72 hours our company bought 24701 BTC at an average price of $ 33142,” posted the user with the TSLAinsider identifier on Reddit last month.
“I have no idea what will happen when it hits the newspapers, but I think the price will explode even more,” wrote the user.
“I told you,” wrote TSLAinsider on Monday after Tesla’s news about bitcoin. “I was ridiculed and voted against me.”
The user told the New York Post on Tuesday that he is actually a prankster from Germany.
“If you want to know the truth: I am a young German and I was taking acid while writing this post last month,” he told the Post. “I had a statement that Elon would buy Bitcoin, so I created this trollpost.”
The user, who told the Post that his name was Hendrik, told Reuters that the information in the New York Post article was correct.
Tesla said it started buying bitcoin in January. The New York Post added that with the timeline in the Reddit post, Tesla would have to start buying bitcoin in late December.
Moderators at r / Tesla, a subreddit dedicated to posts about the electric carmaker, previously seemed to remove the post. It was left on r / bitcoin, where cryptocurrency is discussed.
The Reddit posters were revisiting the post on Tuesday in light of Tesla’s disclosure. “Thanks for the warning, Elon,” noted a poster, Valued, on Tuesday. “Send me a PM (private message) before making your next move, please.”
The power of social media users on forums like Reddit’s WallStreetBets to come together and move prices has come into focus in recent weeks, after a wave of retail purchases helped boost GameStop Corp’s stock and other so-called meme stocks. . U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen promised last week to protect investors, but said financial market regulators need to fully understand the recent frenzy of trading involving GameStop Corp and other retail stocks before taking any action.
Tesla said in its annual report published on Monday that the decision to move almost 8% of its reserves to bitcoin was part of its broad investment policy as a company that aims to diversify and maximize its cash returns, including holding gold.
(This story has not been edited by the NDTV team and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)