Uber will not buy bitcoin, but will accept them

Unlike Tesla, Uber will not buy bitcoin, but will accept them as a payment method.

This is what the CEO of the company, Dara Khosrowshahi, reported directly during an interview with CNBC.

After the news about Tesla’s purchase of BTC, Khosrowshahi was asked during an episode of Squawk Box if Uber was considering a similar scenario. 

His response was clear: 

″It’s a conversation that’s happened that has been quickly dismissed. We’re going to keep our cash safe. We’re not in the speculation business. The upside in our company is in the business that we’ve built, not the investments that we invest in”.

As of December 31st, 2020, Uber had $5.65 billion in cash, and $1.18 billion in short-term investments. Tesla had about $19 billion in cash, and $1.5 billion of that was invested in bitcoin.  

Uber, Tesla and Bitcoin

In reality, with this response Khosrowshahi shows that he has not understood what Tesla has actually done. 

In fact, the initiative of Elon Musk’s company is not speculative at all, and is probably not an investment that will affect the business it has built, namely producing and selling electric cars. Moreover, in theory it should serve precisely to shelter the company’s money from the possible risks of dollar inflation. 

Khosrowshahi however also went on to say that Uber might consider accepting cryptocurrencies as a form of payment.

He stated: 

“Just like we accept all kinds of local currency, we are going to look at cryptocurrency and/or bitcoin in terms of currency to transact. That’s good for business. That’s good for our riders and our eaters. That we’ll certainly look at and if there’s a benefit there, if there’s a need there, we’ll do it. We’re just not going to do it as part of a promotion”.

It is worth noting that after the announcement on February 8th, Tesla’s share price first rose a bit, but then fell by almost 5%.