‘Expect us’: Hacktivist group Anonymous threatens Elon Musk for 'playing games' with Bitcoin

A decentralised international hacktivist group, Anonymous, has threatened Tesla CEO Elon Musk to "expect" them, saying the games played by the entrepreneur with crypto markets seemed to have destroyed lives. In a video posted on the Facebook page of Anonymous, the hackers said that the "carefully curated" image of Elon Musk is getting exposed, and people are "beginning to see [him] as nothing more than another narcissistic rich dude who is desperate for attention."

"There are plenty of other companies working on space exploration and electric vehicles, you are just the only CEO who has gained a cult following through sh*tposting and trolling the world on social media," the hacktivist group said.

According to a Forbes report, much of Tesla's seven-quarter profit streak came from the billions of dollars it hauled in from selling carbon tax credits to makers of gasoline-powered autos that need them to meet pollution rules of the US and the European Union. The report further suggested that the electric vehicle and clean energy company based in Palo Alto, California, reported cumulative credit sales worth $4.4 billion, with $2.69 billion of that coming just since 2019.

Anonymous said that people have started learning that the vast majority of Tesla's income doesn't actually come from selling cars but from government subsidies and selling carbon tax credits for the innovation with clean energy. "This, technically, isn't your innovation though, because you aren't actually the founder of Tesla. You simply purchased the company from two people much more intelligent than you are, Mark Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning," they added.

The group claimed that Tesla has made more money by holding Bitcoin for a few months than they have by selling cars for years. They also suggested that it is more than likely the Bitcoins were purchased with money from government subsidies. "It is now widely believed that you have been forced to denounce your company's involvement with Bitcoin in order to keep that green government money flowing into Tesla's coffers," Anonymous said.

Last month, Elon Musk, citing climate change concerns, said in a tweet that Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin. The announcement was followed by a meltdown in the crypto market, wiping out more than billions of dollars in value from the coin's peak market value. Anonymous said that the use of energy argument about Bitcoin mining "is a very nuanced conversation that requires a fairly complex understanding of how power grids work, and how excess energy is wasted by power companies and sought out by crypto miners."

"This is a conversation that you have been having for over a year and were intimately aware of, but as soon as your main source of income was threatened you pretended to be clueless in an attempt to play both sides of the fence," the hacktivist group alleged.

Anonymous said that Elon Musk's move to create a Bitcoin miner council was rightly seen as an attempt to centralise the industry and take it under Tesla CEO's control. They noted that millions of retail investors were counting on their crypto gains to improve their lives, and even though they took the risk upon themselves when they invested, Musk's tweets showed a clear disregard for the average working person.

"You may think you are the smartest person in the room, but now you have met your match. We are Anonymous! We are Legion! Expect us," the group warned.

Anonymous also lambasted Elon Musk for "prematurely" calling himself 'Emperor of Mars', saying the Red Planet is a place where the SpaceX founder will be sending people to die.