Tesla announced that it had sold about 75% of the bitcoins it had bought in early 2021 for about $ 1.5 billion. The deal, according to company data, added $ 936 million in cash to the electric car giant’s coffers.
The number one of the company, Elon Musk, motivated the sale of a large part of the crypto purchased in 2021 with concerns related to lockdowns in China, with the consequent slowdown in production at the Shanghai plant, which would have required an accumulation of liquidity to deal with the damage caused to the company from the block. “We were concerned about the company’s overall liquidity due to the lockdowns in China,” Musk said, adding that Tesla is willing to increase its bitcoin holdings in the future.
The night of cryptocurrencies
In February 2021, when Tesla announced the massive purchase of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin was worth $ 39,000. Today it is worth 22,000, down 46% compared to that period.
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It is not clear when these bitcoins were sold and at what price (the company has not provided details on this), but it is evident that they were not sold at present value otherwise it would not be explained how the operation could have brought almost a billion into the coffers. of Tesla by selling three quarters of the cryptocurrencies bought for 1.5 billion.
On June 15, Musk commented on the collapse of the bitcoin market on Twitter as “the winter of cryptocurrencies”. One of his last interventions on the subject, before announcing the divestment.
Tesla, problems in the last quarterly
Tesla posted a decline in quarterly earnings for the first time in more than a year as it faces global economic turmoil and seeks to recover from a prolonged shutdown of its Shanghai assembly plant.
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The electric car maker reported better-than-expected results for the second quarter, but also showed the challenges it still faces, including the burden of supply chain disruptions, global chip shortages and rising costs of materials and logistics.
Tesla posted a profit of $ 2.3 billion in the second quarter, higher than the $ 1.9 billion expected from Wall Street but lower than the quarterly profit of $ 3.3 billion for the first three months of the year.