Elon Musk and his company Tesla had caused a stir in the cryptosphere in February 2021, when they announced that they had acquired $1.5 billion worth of bitcoins (BTC). While their relationship with Bitcoin has had its ups and downs since then, it’s fair to say that Tesla is now recording a colossal capital gain on its BTC.
Tesla’s Bitcoins have appreciated by +71%!
While Elon Musk had already shown interest in crypto-currencies, making some positive comments about Bitcoin or posting memes about Dogecoin (DOGE), the announcement of a massive purchase of bitcoins by Tesla in February 2021 has been a tremendous bullish gas pedal for the entire crypto market.
With the recent rise in BTC prices, the high-end electric car company has seen a sharp appreciation in its bitcoins. In fact, according to data from the Bitcoin Treasuries site, which lists bitcoins owned by major companies, Tesla has reportedly seen a nice 71% gain in value on its BTC.
Tesla’s bitcoins are thus valued at $2.57 billion, a profit of $1.07 billion compared to their purchase value. Indeed, it is estimated that Elon Musk’s company would own 43,200 BTC today, after selling a portion (about 10%) at the end of April 2021.
Is Bitcoin generating as much profit as Tesla car sales?
In its balance sheet for the second quarter of 2021, Tesla had reported exactly $1.14 billion in net profits from its operations, revenues mainly from its electric car sales.
Tesla’s car sales during this 2ᵉ quarter, then, generated only slightly more profit than the value gain of bitcoins held by the company.
In fact, if Elon Musk’s company had HODL (retained) the 10% of bitcoins it sold last April, its initial purchase of about 48,000 BTC would be worth more than $2.85 billion today. That’s a potential profit of $1.35 billion, which this time would have been much higher than its car sales for an entire quarter!
Will this very telling comparison definitively reconcile Elon Musk with Bitcoin? He had probably caused a strong correction of the BTC prices last May, after announcing that Tesla cars would not be bought in Bitcoins anymore. Especially since the ecological pretext evoked for this withdrawal is proving to be more and more unjustified.
