About Tesla

About Tesla

• Tesla opened its first "Gigafactory" outside the United States in Shanghai, China, in 2019. Giga Shanghai was the first automobile factory in China fully owned by a foreign company, and was built in less than 6 months. In February 2021, Tesla revealed that it had invested some $1.5 billion in Bitcoin in 2020[76][78] and on March 24 the company started accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment for vehicle purchases in the United States and stated that they would introduce Bitcoin payment in other countries later that year.[79] At the time, Musk tweeted that “Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency.”[80] It was later revealed in financial documents that between January 1 and March 31, 2021, Tesla had made a $101 million profit on the sale of bitcoin. After 49 days of accepting the digital currency, the company reversed course on May 12, 2021, saying they would no longer take Bitcoin due to concerns that "mining" the cryptocurrency was contributing to the consumption of fossil fuels and climate change.[81] The decision resulted in the price of Bitcoin dropping around 12% on May 13.[82] During a July Bitcoin conference, Musk suggested Tesla could possibly help Bitcoin miners switch to renewable energy in the future and also stated at the same conference that if Bitcoin mining reaches, and trends above 50 percent renewable energy usage, that "Tesla would resume accepting bitcoin." The price for bitcoin rose after this announcement.