Business Insider
Tesla has avoided adding a finance arm to lend customers money to buy cars.
But Tesla could now become a bitcoin banking hub.
About 10 years ago, I joined a conference call with Elon Musk to talk about a new leasing program for Tesla s Model S sedan, which was then relatively new to the market. I asked the CEO when he thought the automaker might start its own bank.
He said that Tesla was happy with its established finance partners and wasn t planning to create the Bank of Elon anytime soon. Which made sense. Tesla was then producing a fraction of the half-million cars it did in 2020. Manufacturing vehicles was far more important than lending people money to buy them.