Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the company has suspended purchases of its vehicles using Bitcoin.
“We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” he said in a statement posted to Twitter Tueday evening.
Musk said “cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels,” and said the company believes it has a “promising future.”
“But this cannot come at great cost to the environment.”
Musk said Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin, “and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.”
He said the company is looking at other cryptocurrencies that use less than one per cent of the energy Bitcoin does.
In February, the company announced it had purchased US$1.5 billion of bitcoin.
A month later, Musk said the company would accept Bitcoin as payment for its vehicles.
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