Apple principal executive officer Tim Cook said he owns some crypto as "part of a diversified portfolio," but is not planning for the tech company to follow Tesla'due south example by investing in Bitcoin or other tokens.

Speaking at the New York Times' DealBook Online Summit on Tuesday, Melt said he would not utilize the company's roughly $200 billion in cash on hand to invest in cryptocurrencies. He likewise did not intend to accept crypto every bit a means of payment for Apple products "in the firsthand futurity."

"It's not something we have immediate plans to do," said Cook. "I don't think people buy Apple tree stock to get exposure to crypto. If they desire to do that, they can invest directly in crypto through other ways."

Yet, the Apple tree CEO — personally worth more than $1 billion — said he owned some crypto when asked about investing in Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH):

"I've been interested in [crypto] for a while. I've been researching it and and so forth… I recollect it's interesting."

Melt's argument may come every bit a bit of a surprise to many in the crypto space, given the CEO has largely not taken a public position on digital assets despite decision-making i of the largest companies in the world. Co-ordinate to data from AssetDash, Apple tree is currently the second near valuable company behind Microsoft, with a market place capitalization of more than than $2.four billion.

Related: Will Apple exist the adjacent visitor to adopt Bitcoin after Tesla?

Some major tech CEOs, including Tesla'south Elon Musk, haven't been especially shy when expressing their opinions on crypto. Musk may have contributed to the price of the crypto asset — as well as that of Dogecoin (DOGE) — experiencing volatility in response to his social media posts and business decisions at Tesla. This week, he sold 10% of his Tesla stock in response to the results of a Twitter poll.