What just happened? Elon Musk has faced criticism recently over tweets that send Bitcoin crashing, but he can push the price upwards, too. On Sunday, the CEO said that Tesla would resume accepting the crypto once there is confirmation of reasonable clean energy use by miners.

Tesla invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin earlier this year and announced it would accept the digital currency as payment for its products, pushing the price to $44,000. In April, BTC reached a record high of almost $65,000.

Tesla's love affair with BTC turned sour last month when Musk reversed the decision to accept the coin as payment for Teslas, citing the environmental impact of mining. That sent Bitcoin's price falling, as did the billionaire's suggestion that Tesla had sold or could sell its holdings. Musk later confirmed his company still holds most of its Bitcoin investment, but the damage had been done.

Bitcoin's price over the last week

One person having so much influence over the price of Bitcoin has angered many, including a group alleging to be Anonymous that posted a threatening video targeting Musk.

Responding yesterday to an article in which Magda Wierzycka, CEO of South African asset manager Sygnia, criticized him for an alleged Bitcoin pump and dump, Musk wrote: "When there's confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing bitcoin transactions."

Musk added that "Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market." The EV giant sold $272 million of digital assets in Q1, which helped reduce operating losses by $101 million.

Bitcoin jumped from around $35,000 yesterday morning to the current price of just under $40,000, its highest level in about three weeks.