While analysts were expecting a loss from Tesla's cryptocurrency holdings, the car maker reported nearly a $1 billion gain from Bitcoin sales.
Tesla released its Q2 today. The company reported $936 million in proceeds from the sale of digital assets.
"Quarter-end cash, cash equivalents and short-term marketable securities increased sequentially by $902M to $18.9B in Q2, driven mainly by free cash flow of $621M, partially offset by debt repayments of $402M. As of the end of Q2, we have converted approximately 75% of our Bitcoin purchases into fiat currency. Conversions in Q2 added $936M of cash to our balance sheet," wrote the company in its Q2.
Explaining the move out of Bitcoin in a conference call, Musk said cryptocurrency is "...not something we think about a lot. We think a lot about scaling production and accelerating the advent of sustainable energy. We’re neither here nor there on cryptocurrency."
Musk expanded on the move out of Bitcoin saying he was concerned about China, which prompted the sale.
"It should be mentioned that the reason we sold a bunch of our Bitcoin holdings was that 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 of the COVID lockdowns in China.
"We are certainly open to increasing our Bitcoin holdings in future. So this should not be taken as some verdict on Bitcoin. It’s just that we were concerned about overall liquidity for the company given COVID shutdowns in China. And we have not sold any of our Dogecoin."
Some analysts were expecting an impairment, and expected Tesla would have to mark down all its Bitcoin holdings. At the beginning of 2021, an SEC filing revealed that Tesla bought $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. At the time, Bitcoin was worth around $30,000.
Tesla as a whole reported that revenue dropped 13% to $13.6 billion. Vehicles deliveries were down compared to last quarter.
"In Q2, we achieved record production rates across the company. However, we saw a continuation of manufacturing challenges related to shutdowns, global supply chain disruptions, labor shortages and logistics and other complications, which limited our ability to consistently run our factories at full capacity."
Earnings per share were $2.27 versus $1.77 forecast.
