Did Elon Musk Really Manipulate Bitcoin, As Anonymous Claims?

Although the Miami Bitcoin conference tried to make it seem like El Salvador accepting the world’s biggest crypto as legal tender (something this site highlighted a week ago), the story of the weekend was undoubtedly the message that hacktivist group Anonymous sent to Tesla boss Elon Musk over his alleged manipulation of the Bitcoin price.

The hacker collective known only as Anonymous was clearly quite upset with Musk, whom they claimed was just the only CEO who has gained a cult following through shitposting and trolling the world on social media.

Their message was quite threatening, stating:

People are beginning to see you are nothing more than another narcissistic rich dude who is desperate for attention. You were born into the stolen wealth of a South African apartheid emerald mine and have no clue what struggle is like for most of the working people in the world. As hardworking people have their dreams liquidated over your public temper tantrums, you continue to mock them with memes from one of your million dollar mansions.

Lithium mining

It comes as Elon Musk seems to have turned negative on Bitcoin in the past few weeks, after he was seen touting it at the beginning of the year. Back in January, the cryptosphere went estatic when Musk announced Tesla invested directly in Bitcoin, to the tune of $1.5 billion.

Musk has for a long time been known as a major promoter of cryptocurrencies (and is the biggest fanboy of Dogecoin), but he has turned critical of Bitcoin mining ever since he decided to suspend Tesla’s plans to allow it in payment for cars.

According to Musk, this is because he believe that Bitcoin’s energy use is damaging to his brand. Anonymous has now highlighted that this is hypocritical as they showed video of children mining for lithium in Africa, a practice that Tesla apparently allows.

Anonymous explained that:

It is also obvious to the young children working in your overseas lithium mines which are destroying the local environment as well.

Even Cathy Wood, founder of investment firm ARK, recently admitted that the ESG concerns over Bitcoin have been rather damaging to the cryptosphere and that this is in part what dragged down the Bitcoin price. It now appears that Musk might be part of the problem too.

On the other hand, some commenters claimed that Anonymous only threatened Musk because they probably lost some of their crypto wealth in recent weeks as well.

In essence, the best summary was put forward by Mr Whale this week, who stated:

Bitcoiners arguing that its literally impossible to manipulate the price of Bitcoin…  while simultaneously crying that Elon Musk is manipulating the price of Bitcoin is peak hypocrisy.

Interesting beginning of summer. Let’s see where we are when fall comes around.