Tesla continues to maintain a balance sheet with $184 million worth of digital assets
Tesla reported that its digital asset holdings remained unchanged at $184 million in the second quarter of 2023. This is despite the rise in bitcoin’s price during the quarter. Accounting rules prevent unrealized gains on crypto assets from being recorded. The price of bitcoin increased by around 7% during the second quarter, resulting in year-to-date gains of approximately 80%. In February 2021, Tesla purchased $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and announced plans to accept it as a form of payment. However, CEO Elon Musk later reversed these plans due to environmental concerns. The company sold approximately 75% of its bitcoin holdings in the second quarter, leaving it with $218 million worth of digital assets on its balance sheet. Musk stated during the earnings call in July 2022 that Tesla is open to increasing its bitcoin holdings in the future. The company maintained its digital asset holdings at $184 million throughout the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first three months of 2023. Musk has shown his support for dogecoin and even changed Twitter’s logo to that of dogecoin in April. In June 2022, investor Keith Johnson filed a $258 billion lawsuit against Musk, alleging his involvement in manipulating the price of DOGE as part of a pyramid scheme. Musk’s lawyers argued that supporting a cryptocurrency publicly is not illegal. Musk commented during the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in May, advising against buying crypto or betting heavily on dogecoin.
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