Tesla, the electric car company owned by the multibillionaire and dogecoin enthusiast Elon Musk, just released a new yearly third-quarter report about the company’s operations, finances, and technological updates.
In regard to Tesla’s finances – the fact that the company continues to hold cryptocurrencies despite the ongoing depreciation. The company currently holds $218 million worth of bitcoin.
However, Elon Musk’s electric car company used to hold a lot more BTC.
In the second quarter report, Tesla stated that it held 42,000 Bitcoin. That means that the company liquidated around 75% of its digital assets before the third quarter report.
Immediately after the Q2 sale, CEO Elon Musk announced that the business had sold its bitcoins in order to deal with China’s unexpectedly high production costs as a result of the COVID-19 lockout.
“The reason we sold a bunch of our bitcoin holdings is we were uncertain as to when the covid lockdowns in China would alleviate, so it was important for us to maximize our cash position given the uncertainty,” Elon Musk said during Tesla’s Q2 investor’s meeting. “We are certainly open to increasing our bitcoin holdings in the future, so this should not be taken as some verdict of bitcoin.”
While Tesla liquidated a major portion of its Bitcoin holdings, the billionaire remained a Bitcoin owner.
Despite the transaction, Tesla remains in the top 3 of the largest Bitcoin holdings by a publicly listed business. Behind only MicroStrategy with 130,000 BTC (about $2.48 billion) and Galaxy Digital Holdings with 16,400 BTC (approximately $313 million).
Undisclosed Dogecoin
Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency Tesla owns. Elon Musk once reported that part of his company’s investments is in an undisclosed amount of Dogecoin.
During Tesla’s Q2 liquidation of 75% of its Bitcoin reserve, the company’s CEO made it clear that the company’s Dogecoin remained untouched.
“We have not sold any of our dogecoin, we still have our dogecoin,” Musk said.
This should come as no surprise given that Doge is Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency.
On several occasions, the Billionaire promoted the meme coin on his Twitter profile, which resulted in the currency skyrocketing in value while also gathering thousands of new fans and potential Doge investors.
Since then, Musk proceeded to grant the meme coin real-life utility. In September, Tesla announced the sale of a special collectible item named “Cyberwhistle“, which had its design inspired by the company’s upcoming Cybertruck vehicle.
Fans who wanted to buy the Cyberwhisthle could only do so if paying in Dogecoin. The product sold out within a couple of hours after its release.
Earlier this month, “The Boring Company” – a company also owned by Elon Musk – announced the sale of a new perfume line that could also be bought with dogecoin.
The company sold over 11,000 bottles for $100 each, reaching the $1 million mark in sales shortly after its announcement.
