“Ever Heard Of Paypal?”: Elon Musk Has Epic Meltdown Arguing With Bitcoin Fanatics

With Elon Musk’s “stand” against bitcoin last week, claiming that Tesla would not longer accept the coin for payments due to the environmental impact of mining it, the Tesla CEO quickly wound up doing an about-face in terms of his popularity with bitcoin fanatics. 

And that “new” relationship was on full display Sunday when the Tesla CEO had an epic meltdown after a spat that started with podcast cost Peter McCormack. McCormack had written a thread to musk, accusing him of “trolling” with his support of Dogecoin, which led Musk to respond:

Obnoxious threads like this make me want to go all in on Doge

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2021

This set off the coining community, with Dogecoin creator @BillM2K asking of Musk’s comment: “Do you see what being a toxic idiot does to your coin and community?”

Mic drop.

Do you see what being a toxic idiot does to your coin and community? https://t.co/E4OSi5lzLn

— Shibetoshi Nakamoto (@BillyM2k) May 16, 2021

Musk’s response also opened the door for a spat wherein he called bitcoin “highly centralized” and boasted “Hey cryptocurrency ‘experts’, ever heard of PayPal? It’s possible…maybe…that I know [more] than you realize about how money works”. 

To which McCormack replied…

PayPal, LMAO. You mean the company which froze Wikileaks account? The company which routinely censors payments?

— Peter McCormack🇸🇻 (@PeterMcCormack) May 16, 2021

Musk’s meltdown drew additional jeers from all over Twitter. Max Keiser wasted no time with critiquing Musk’s arguments and went directly for an ad hominem shot at his mother, Maye Musk. Others claimed Musk was ready to “rage quit” bitcoin.

Watching @elonmusk about to rage quit bitcoin because his ego is too big it prevents him from understanding it is 🤌 #bitcoin literally doesn’t give a fuck who you are or how much money you have.

— 🟩 Xefe Bezos 🟩 (@xefebezos) May 16, 2021

Well known Tesla critic @TeslaCharts chimed in:

Elon is used to dumb people kissing his ass. He can’t tolerate smart people calling him a fraud, or worse, laughing at him. Crypto is full of really smart people. I hope they ridicule him relentlessly. He’ll implode.$BTC $ETH

— TC, Master of Chart (@TESLAcharts) May 16, 2021

Others accused Musk of not being able to stay in his lane…

A narcissistic inability to stay even approximately in his own lane was always one of Elon’s biggest risks.

— Economic Man (“Muskago Delenda Est”) (@EconomicManBlog) May 16, 2021

Max Keiser joked that Elon made Peter Schiff, who he is notoriously at odds over bitcoin with, rational.

Elon makes @PeterSchiff seem rational. pic.twitter.com/S0tdNYEVcu

— 🍊💊 Max Keiser (@maxkeiser) May 16, 2021

Finally, one Twitter user summed up Musk’s “cradle to grave” experience with bitcoin:

Musk’s year in crypto:

Discovers Bitcoin. Loves it

Learns about Bitcoin mining. Hates it!

Discovers Dogecoin. Loves it

Learns about throughput limitations. Hates it!

Proposes “fixing” Dogecoin with 10-year obsolete kluges

Gets clowned by cryptosphere

Keeps digging https://t.co/hlX0K0oTd4

— Bachman (@ElonBachman) May 16, 2021

When one user suggested Musk should dump his bitcoin as a result of the treatment he was getting, Musk replied “indeed”:

Indeed

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2021

This caused the following headline to hit the Bloomberg terminal: “MUSK IMPLIES TESLA MAY SELL OR HAS SOLD BITCOIN HOLDINGS”. The headline and the spat had Bitcoin trading with a $45,000 handle by mid day Sunday.

Recall, after Elon Musk royally pissed off cryptoworld by announcing that Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin last week (just three months after Tesla announced they would take it), Dogecoin co-creator, Jackson Palmer, slammed Musk in a now-deleted Tweet, calling him a ‘self-absorbed grifter.’

The co-creator of Dogecoin, Jackson Palmer, steps out of shadows to tweet & delete:
Tweet1: “Elon Musk is and always will be a self-absorbed grifter”
Tweet2: “Removing this in 1 min as that’s all I have to say and I enjoy the quite life”
Tweet3: “ps. SNL episode was cringe, bro” https://t.co/StkV8u1JyN

— 🟩Preston Pysh🟩 (@PrestonPysh) May 14, 2021

Musk’s announcement caused a brutal selloff in most cryptocurrencies, including Dogecoin – which fell precipitously during the Tesla founder’s lame appearance on Saturday Night Live, where he called himself the “Dogefather” and pumped the digital coin while also calling it a “hustle.”

So goes the new state of the crypto world…

Dan Loeb, Steve Cohen, Ray Dalio in

Elon out.

Fair trade

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 16, 2021