Elon Musk sells 75% of Tesla's Bitcoin; says it's 'not a verdict' on cryptocurrency

Elon Musk’s Tesla, which caused a stir last year when it revealed a major investment in Bitcoin, has now sold off most of its holdings of the popular cryptocurrency. In Tesla’s full Q2 2022 financial report, the electric car firm has offloaded 75% of its Bitcoin, which was worth about $2 billion (£1.7billion) at the end of 2021. Musk’s company chose to back away from Bitcoin as the value of the cryptocurrency has plunged, falling by over 50% this year. 

The company further revealed in its report that it bought traditional currency with $936 million in sales from Bitcoin. The massive move by Tesla came as Musk has been among the most high-profile promoters of the cryptocurrency and his cryptic tweets on the microblogging platforms have often driven significant trading activity across the globe. 

Earlier, Tesla had revealed in February 2021 that it had made a $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin and announced that it would accept the cryptocurrency as payment. The electric car maker company started accepting Bitcoin payments in March of last year. However, in May 2021 itself, Tesla unprecedentedly reversed the move, within 49 days. 

As per the latest quarter report published by Tesla, the company has said that the value of its remaining “digital assets” is $218 million which was previously reported to be around $1.2 billion. Just last July, according to a report by Verge, Tesla CEO Musk said, “I might pump, but I don’t dump ... I definitely do not believe in getting the price high and selling or anything like that. I would like to see Bitcoin succeed”.

Elon Musk on Tesla selling Bitcoin 

Moreover, during an investor call, the billionaire addressed the crypto selloff and said that it “should not be taken as some verdict on Bitcoin”. He stated that the reason for his company’s move was because it was “concerned about overall liquidity of the company given COVID shutdowns in China”. Tesla CEO said, “We have not sold any of our Dogecoin” and later termed cryptocurrency “a sideshow to the sideshow”. It has been reported that Tesla’s move reflects the company’s dire need for cash.

In June this year, Musk had revealed that the company is “overwhelmingly” concerned about not going bankrupt. In an interview with the Tesla owners group, the billionaire made the revelation as Tesla continues to face billions of dollars in losses from its new plants along with other supply chain problems and the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns. 

"The past two years have been an absolute nightmare of supply chain interruptions, one thing after another," Musk said, “We're not out of it yet. That's overwhelmingly our concern is how do we keep the factories operating so we can pay people and not go bankrupt."

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