Elon Musk Says Tesla Is Accepting Dogecoin for Some Merchandise

Dogecoin surged greater than 10% after Mr. Musk’s tweet.

Mr. Musk has a document of commenting on cryptocurrencies. Dogecoin’s worth jumped late final 12 months when Mr. Musk indicated Tesla would make some merchandise out there for buy utilizing the cost type.

Tesla final 12 months purchased $1.5 billion of bitcoin. Mr. Musk additionally mentioned on the time that the corporate would start accepting funds within the cryptocurrency. It later suspended these purchases after Mr. Musk expressed considerations about excessive ranges of fossil-fuel use for bitcoin mining.

Mr. Musk final 12 months mentioned that he and his rocket firm, House Exploration Applied sciences Corp., or SpaceX, maintain bitcoin. The billionaire chief government mentioned he additionally owns ethereum and dogecoin, different cryptocurrencies, although these holdings are price lower than his bitcoin stake.

Dogecoin has been one of the crucial unstable cryptocurrencies. It was began in 2013 as a joke and is centered round a Shiba Inu web meme. The worth of the cryptocurrency surged final 12 months and stays round 2,000% larger than a 12 months in the past.

Mr. Musk—the world’s richest individual, in keeping with the Bloomberg Billionaires Index—is carefully related to dogecoin. Virtually a 12 months in the past, he tweeted a pretend “Dogue” journal cowl to his tens of millions of followers. He talked about the forex once more on Twitter a couple of days later, sending its worth up 80% intraday, earlier than paring beneficial properties.

Dogecoin made a cameo look final 12 months in Mr. Musk’s “Saturday Evening Reside” internet hosting debut. In a satirical phase, Mr. Musk appeared as “The Dogefather.” After he expounded on the deserves of the cryptocurrency utilizing jargon, different forged members requested him to clarify, “What’s dogecoin?” Pressed, Mr. Musk ultimately mentioned, “Yeah, it’s a hustle.”

Write to Robert Wall at robert.wall@wsj.com