In Q4, Elon Musk’s Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) managed to beat revenue expectations and held on to all of its remaining Bitcoin.
In its earnings report released on Wednesday, January 25th, Musk’s electric car company revealed it had sold none of its Bitcoin in the previous quarter. Furthermore, the company beat both its revenue and earnings estimates.
Tesla Holds On to Bitcoin, Beats Estimates
In its quarterly earnings report, Tesla revealed it had neither bought nor sold any Bitcoin in Q4. The company did, however, report $34 million in impairment charges due to the changing price of the world’s largest cryptocurrency as the value of its holdings declined from around $218 million to $184 million.
While Tesla also kept its Bitcoin in Q3, there was some debate on social media on whether it would do the same again. The lowered institutional interest in the sector after the FTX collapse, as well as the fact that the car company sold 75% of its Bitcoin in Q2, were the primary drivers of the speculations.
Apart from holding its Bitcoin, Tesla also succeeded in beating estimates for Q4. Revenue of $24.16 billion was expected while the company achieved $24.32 billion. Likewise, the earnings per share came at $1.19 instead of the estimated $1.13. On the other hand, unlike Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) recent earnings report which drove share price up in the immediate aftermath, Tesla’s stock did not respond in a decisive way in the after-hours trading.
Tesla Gets a Much-Needed Respite
The previous year has been a mixed bag for the electric car company. On the one hand, it reported early in January that its deliveries in 2022 rose by 40% compared to 2021—up to 1.31 million. On the other hand, its shares took a beating throughout the year and were down as much as 72% by late December 2022.
Apart from the sale of 75% of its Bitcoin in Q2, Musk’s sale of 22 million shares of the car company to cover a part of Twitter’s $44 billion price tag in mid-December had a severe impact on the firm. Also in late December, Tesla suspended production at its major Shanghai Plant, and then extended the suspension further sparking doubts about its future performance.
Similarly, Musk’s firm had a mixed start to 2023. The YTD price of shares has grown by more than 30% in stark contrast to the shocking decline of 2022. Furthermore, the company is reportedly seeking to open a new plant in Indonesia to capitalize on the archipelago nation’s vast reserves of key battery metals.
On the other hand, the company went into what many took for damage control when it cut vehicle prices by as much as 20% on some models in Europe and the US. Furthermore, the company already faced some government scrutiny as it was fined for false claims by South Korean authorities, and was subject to public controversy after it was revealed that its self-driving marketing video from 2016 was faked.
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