Inflation and the overall economic slump are catching up to Tesla. Elon Musk reveals they’ve sold 75% of their Bitcoin to raise cash flow.
Inflation’s hitting many businesses pretty hard these days, and it looks like Tesla is not immune to it either. In addition to slowing down their deliveries by 18% and raising the prices of their cars last quarter to increase cash flow, Tesla executives have also revealed that they’ve now sold 75% of their Bitcoin holdings. This has scored them an extra $936 million for their balance sheet.
According to an official statement by Tesla, these decisions have been made, in part, to combat “lower stock-based compensation expense.” They also confess that they are in fact feeling the heat of inflation, which has only been made worse by the plummeting prices of several cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin.
In March of 2021, Tesla reportedly invested a whopping $1.5 billion into Bitcoin, followed by a declaration that they were officially accepting the cryptocurrency as a payment method for their vehicles. Less than two months later, they changed their minds.
Explaining the situation via a statement in July of that year, Tesla CEO, Elon 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.” Sure, Elon. We believe you. Is this like when you said you wanted to buy Twitter as well?
