Tesla, run by the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, still has about $218 million in bitcoin on its balance sheet despite the current crypto winter and the legal tussle with Twitter. The electric car maker said in its quarterly earnings report on Wednesday.
HODLing Despite Turbulence
Tesla remains one of the biggest corporate holders of Bitcoin (BTC).
Tesla did not add or reduce its Bitcoin holdings in the third quarter. The value of its BTC cache remained unchanged at $218 million, according to the company’s Oct. 19 earnings report.
Tesla first bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in February 2021. It was seen as a highly bullish move then, so much so that the benchmark cryptocurrency hit a new historic high above $43,000.
The Elon Musk-led company sold 10% of its BTC stash in April of the same year to “prove liquidity of Bitcoin as an alternative to holding cash on the balance sheet.” But the sale that sent shockwaves across the market is the one in July this year, where Tesla offloaded a whopping 75% of its total Bitcoin holdings. The Tesla boss explained during an investor call that the company sold a massive chunk of its Bitcoin due to liquidity concerns spurred by China’s lockdowns.
Despite that colossal sell-off, Tesla is still the publicly-traded company with the second-largest Bitcoin portfolio, only after cloud software company MicroStrategy.
Besides Tesla, several other Musk-helmed companies, including SpaceX and the Boring Company, also accept dog-themed crypto Dogecoin (DOGE) as payment. Musk has, on several occasions, reiterated his belief that DOGE is a better everyday payment option than Bitcoin.
The tech magnate first said he would purchase Twitter back in April because he was agitated by the microblogging site’s lack of freedom of speech. But then he tried to back out of the arrangement, citing too many spam bots on the platform. This subsequently prompted a legal battle as Twitter was hell-bent on forcing him to proceed with the deal at the original $44 billion price.
The company’s Q3 report released on Oct. 19 indicates that the back and forth between Musk and Twitter has not changed Tesla’s stance on cryptocurrency.
