The chief executive of Tesla, Elon Musk has been making waves on social media for quite a while, in regard to his interest and opinions related to cryptocurrencies. As a matter of fact, Musk was cited as the reason behind Bitcoin’s crash that occurred back in May, after the pioneer cryptocurrency had reached an all-time high. This was because Tesla announced that it wouldn’t be accepting Bitcoin as a means of payment for its electric vehicles, citing environmental concerns. Suffice it to say, there has been a lot of talk about Musk and Tesla in regard to Bitcoin and crypto in general.
In the beginning of the year, the CEO had disclosed that Tesla had purchased Bitcoins worth $1.5 billion. Later on, the company had also sold some of its holdings, which he said was only a test. However, he had not shed light on the exact amount of bitcoins owned by the firm. Now, he has finally hinted how many bitcoins it owns, after he revealed that the fair market value of Tesla’s bitcoin holdings is almost $1.47 billion, as of June 30th. The techno king commented on the matter of the number of bitcoins owned by his electric car company, after David Lee, a Tesla shareholder, provided a rough calculation of it on Twitter.
Lee did his calculation by using the fair market value of $1.47 billion of the entire bitcoin holdings of Tesla that were listed in the Form 10-Q filed by the company with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Tesla had written that the carrying value of the company’s digital assets as of June 30th, 2021, was around $1.31 billion. This reflects the cumulative impairments that had occurred of about $50 million. As of June 30th, this would bring the fair market value of its holdings to about $1.47 billion.
The price of bitcoin at close on June 30th was also used by Lee in his calculations, which had been around $35,040. The high of BTC price had touched $35,189.75 on that day, whereas the lowest the crypto had gone was around $34,155.90. His estimates indicate that Tesla’s total Bitcoin holdings are about 42,069 coins. Subsequently, Musk responded to this calculation and said that they did not have that many bitcoins, but it was fairly close. As mentioned earlier, Tesla had purchased Bitcoin for $1.5 billion in the first quarter of the year.
In March, the company had made the announcement of accepting Bitcoin as a means of payment for their electric vehicles, but they had halted the practice in May citing environmental concerns. However, while attending a recent bitcoin event known as ‘The B Word’, Musk said that it was likely that Tesla wouldn’t resume accepting Bitcoin. During the earnings call for the second quarter, the company reported its bitcoin holdings were valued at $1.311 billion after impairments. In April, the company’s stash had reached a value of $2.5 billion.
Moreover, it is not just Tesla that owns Bitcoin, as Musk revealed that he also owns it personally, as does his other firm, SpaceX. He also owns dogecoin and Ether.