Michael Saylor, the CEO who made a $425 million bet on Bitcoin earlier this year, is offering to advise Elon Musk on how to get started investing in crypto.
According to a tweet posted today, Saylor proposed Musk convert Tesla’s balance sheet into Bitcoin (BTC) — a company whose market capitalization is currently valued at more than $658 billion, according to AssetDash. The MicroStrategy CEO implied a figure like Musk taking the lead on Bitcoin adoption could cause “other firms on the S&P 500” to follow.
Saylor then offered to “share [his] playbook” with the Tesla CEO “from one rocket scientist to another,” stating he had purchased $1.3 billion in Bitcoin this year. The MicroStrategy CEO holds dual degrees from MIT in aeronautics and astronautics, and science, technology, and society.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has an estimated net worth of more than $153 billion but as of February 2019 only personally held 0.25 BTC. On the other hand, Saylor, whose net worth is 300 times less — roughly $500 million, according to some estimates — has led business intelligence firm MicroStrategy to make one of the largest Bitcoin investments from a major financial institution this year. The CEO has seen the value of his initial $425 million BTC purchase this year more than double with the crypto asset’s recent rally to $24,000.
Other crypto players were quick to respond to Musk’s inquiry regarding potentially making such a large crypto purchase.
Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency derivatives exchange FTX, told the billionaire that he could execute such a plan “over the course of a week.” Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss also jumped into the conversation, advising Musk that there was “plenty of liquidity to get that done.”
However, known gold bug Peter Schiff came out against the potential investment, referring to Bitcoin as a pyramid scheme and advising Musk to “[not] leave Tesla shareholders holding the same bag as MicroStrategy shareholders.”
Saylor has been outspoken in his support of Bitcoin since announcing MicroStrategy made its first $250 million Bitcoin purchase as a reserve asset in August. He has commented that tech firms like Apple could see a $100 billion gain in market capitalization by integrating Bitcoin into Apple Pay, building a secure crypto wallet into the iPhone, and buying the crypto assets with the tech giant’s Treasury Reserves.
“Big Tech will need to integrate their products with Bitcoin to stay competitive,” said Saylor on Friday. “All companies will need to convert their treasuries to BTC to stay solvent.”