Reddit user claiming to be Tesla insider appeared to…

A Reddit user claiming to be a ‘Tesla insider’ appeared to announce in a January social media post the carmaker’s large purchase of bitcoin. 

The company itself on Monday announced it had purchased a $1.5 billion stake in bitcoin.

That a person who said he or she was connected with Tesla seemed to announce on a Reddit discussion forum the purchase of bitcoin a month ahead of the company’s official announcement has raised some eyebrows.    

‘You heard it here first,’ a user with the name ‘TSLAinsider’ posted on a bitcoin forum on Reddit. ‘Our Company just bought 800 Million worth of Bitcoin.’

The post – which was at https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/kpc8gw/you_heard_it_here_first_our_company_just_bought – received little attention when it appeared on Jan. 2.

But it’s now getting a closer look a day after Tesla, led by Elon Musk, disclosed the $1.5 billion investment in the cryptocurrency in its annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission detailing its holdings. 

A user on Reddit seeming to claim to be an ‘insider’ at Tesla said last month that the company had bought a large amount of bitcoin – a post that’s just now drawing attention after the company said it a filing that it had indeed bought bitcoin

The price of bitcoin has marched sharply higher since early January

‘I have no idea what will happen once this reaches the newspapers but I think the price will explode even more,’ the user wrote. 

The price of bitcoin has indeed gone up sharply since then, from $32,149.90 per bitcoin on Jan. 2 to nearly $47,000 Tuesday.  It hit an all-time high after Tesla’s official announcement Monday. 

Reddit posters were revisiting the post on Tuesday in the light of Tesla’s disclosure. 

‘Thanks for the heads up Elon,’ noted one poster, Valoured, on Tuesday. ‘Send me a PM before you make your next move please.’

Musk has been plugging bitcoin lately on his Twitter feed

Reuters newswire reported that it couldn’t verify the user´s identity, whether the user is a Tesla employee or whether the post was modified from the original. A message to TSLAinsider was not immediately returned.  

Tesla did not immediately respond to an email to its press office.

Tesla said in its annual report published Monday that the decision to move nearly 8% of its reserves into bitcoin was part of its broad investment policy as a company aimed at diversifying and maximizing its returns on cash, including holding gold.

The apparent insider appeared to gloat at the news.

 ‘I told you so,’ TSLAinsider wrote on Reddit on Monday.

Meanwhile, Musk last week promoted the ‘joke’ cryptocurrency DogeCoin, sending the asset soaring as much as 60 percent and drawing concern over the Tesla CEO’s ability to move markets.

In a non-joking comment, Musk said recently also that bitcoin was ‘on the verge’ of being more widely accepted among investors and in December asked if it was possible to do large transactions in the currency.