Tesla, which invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin in May last year, dumped nearly 75 percent of the cryptocurrency in the second quarter of 2022.
In a shareholder letter as part of its earnings report, Tesla said: “As of the end of Q2, we have converted approximately 75 percent of our Bitcoin purchases into fiat currency. Conversions in Q2 added $936 million of cash to our balance sheet.”
Tesla did not reveal the price at which it sold Bitcoin, which has slipped to nearly half its value in the past four months.
On Wednesday, Tesla reported higher-than-expected profit for the three months ending June despite tough market conditions and supply chain woes. However, the $2.26 billion net profit was 32 percent lower than the first quarter.
The California-headquartered EV manufacturer had posted record fourth-quarter and full-year earnings in 2021, when it made $5.5 billion.
The company promised a “record-breaking second half” to the year after production at its factory in China rose to a monthly record following the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions.
In an earnings call, chief executive and founder Elon Musk said Tesla unloaded its bitcoin holdings to maximise its cash position because of uncertainty related to the Covid shutdowns.
“This should not be taken as some verdict of Bitcoin. We haven’t sold any of our dogecoin,” he said emphasising that Tesla was not focused on cryptocurrency.
“It is not something we think about a lot. It’s a side show to the side show … The fundamental good of Tesla and the reason we’re doing this is to have the day of sustainable energy come sooner. That’s our goal. We’re neither here nor there on cryptocurrency.”
Last month, Musk said he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy. On Wednesday, he seemed more optimistic and explained: “I would take this with a grain of salt … I think inflation will decline towards the end of this year.”
Earlier this quarter, Tesla was forced to temporarily shut down its Shanghai Gigafactory to comply with pandemic lockdown restrictions, which led to a rare drop in delivery numbers. Musk also said that Tesla’s factories in Berlin and Texas were losing “billions of dollars right now” because of supply chain issues. This led to the delivery of 254,000 vehicles this quarter, down 18 percent from the previous quarter.
In May last year, Musk said Tesla would stop accepting Bitcoin for car purchases because of the environmental impact of mining, but he then tweeted that the company “will not be selling any Bitcoin.”
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