Elon Musk speculates about the identity of bitcoin’s enigmatic founder, Satoshi Nakamoto.

According to Elon Musk, the mysterious crypto expert Nick Szabo could be Satoshi Nakamoto.

“He appears to be more responsible than anyone else for the ideas behind bitcoin,” Musk remarked.

Szabo has spoken publicly about the history of bitcoin, but he has frequently denied being Nakamoto.

Elon Musk appears to agree with many others that the ultra-secretive cryptocurrency specialist Nick Szabo could be Satoshi Nakamoto, the enigmatic creator of the digital currency bitcoin.

“You can look at the progression of ideas prior to the introduction of bitcoin and see who wrote about those concepts,” Musk said in a podcast published Tuesday to artificial-intelligence researcher Lex Fridman when asked about Nakamoto’s identity.

While the Tesla billionaire stated that he “clearly” did not know who founded bitcoin, he stated that Szabo’s views appeared to be important to the creation of the leading cryptocurrency.

“It appears that Nick Szabo is probably more responsible than anyone else for the advancement of those ideas,” he remarked. “He claims not to be Nakamoto, but I’m not convinced that’s relevant. However, he appears to be the person most responsible for the concepts underlying bitcoin.”

Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym for who people felt could be one or more people, proposed Bitcoin in October 2008.

A group of language scholars reviewed Nakamoto’s bitcoin whitepaper in 2014, along with the writings of Szabo and ten other putative creators. They discovered the results to be unmistakable.

“The number of language similarities between Szabo’s work and the bitcoin whitepaper is eerie,” the researchers wrote, adding that “none of the other putative authors were even close to as excellent a match.”

Szabo was also credited with the inventor of bitcoin in a 2015 New York Times article. He has talked publicly on the history of bitcoin and blockchain technology, but he has frequently refuted claims that he is the digital asset’s anonymous creator.

Another reason he’s associated with bitcoin is his 1998 conception of the “bit gold” cryptocurrency.

Musk stated that he did not believe the identity of bitcoin’s developer was significant: “What exactly is a name? It’s a moniker for an idea. What exactly does it mean?”

In support of his point, he quoted William Shakespeare, who said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”