Tesla and Bitcoin have long had a complicated relationship.
Back in February 2021, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency accelerated to a new all-time high of $47,000 after the electric vehicle manufacturer announced that it was investing $1.5 billion into BTC.
Make no mistake, this was huge news: a publicly listed company with international brand recognition was embracing Bitcoin. While MicroStrategy was the first firm to add BTC to its balance sheet in August 2020, it was hardly a household name.
Tesla’s forward-thinking move followed Elon Musk’s continued tweets about Bitcoin and Dogecoin — erratic posts that had the potential to move markets. Just a month before this announcement, BTC had rallied by 20% after the billionaire added the #bitcoin hashtag to his Twitter bio.
Adding to the market frenzy further, Tesla also announced that it planned to offer Bitcoin as a payment method for its high-end cars — significant considering many retailers at the time were yet to accept crypto. Both of these developments were seen as crucial milestones for the adoption of digital assets.
It didn’t take long for Tesla to embark on multiple U-turns. By May 2021, Tesla announced that it was suspending vehicle purchases using Bitcoin, with Musk declaring to his followers:
“We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.”
On the face of it, this was a pretty reasonable argument to make. It seemed weird for Tesla, which was making a name for itself by manufacturing eco-friendly cars, to invest in digital assets that relied heavily on unsustainable energy sources.
Musk left the door open by declaring that the company would accept BTC as a payment method once again if it could be proven that renewable energy was being used to mine at least 50% of new coins. While figures suggest this threshold has been met for quite a while, Tesla remains rooted in fiat purchases to this day.
There was another cloud on the horizon. Just two months after buying 43,053 BTC, it was confirmed that 10% of this crypto stash had been sold off — with executives claiming this was designed to demonstrate that Bitcoin is a liquid asset.
But the worst was yet to come. By July 2022, Tesla had confirmed that it had in fact sold 75% of the 38,747 BTC it had remaining — and at a loss. Figures from Arcane Research at the time suggested that 29,060 BTC had been offloaded at an average price of $32,209 each — generating revenues of about $936 million.
Tesla’s balance. Image: Arkham Intelligence
Given how the markets have rebounded dramatically over the past three years, that move proved to be incredibly short-sighted. At the time of writing, those 29,000 BTC would be worth a cool $2.7 billion — rising to a value of $3.15 billion based on their value at Bitcoin’s last all-time high of $109,000 in January. Ouch.
Data from BitcoinTreasuries also shows that Tesla has now been leapfrogged in the rankings of the companies with the most Bitcoin holdings. With the latest figures suggesting it currently holds 11,509 BTC, it is now in sixth place — well behind the likes of CleanSpark, Galaxy Digital Holdings, Riot Platforms, MARA Holdings and Strategy. It would have remained in third if that BTC stash was left untouched.
The latest financial results from Tesla show that there have been no further Bitcoin buys or sells in the latest quarter, but investor attention was elsewhere. Car sales between January and March dropped by 20% compared with the year before, while profitability sank by a jaw-dropping 70%.
This led Musk to inform analysts he now plans to allocate more of his time to Tesla, and dial back on his commitments at Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. That might not be enough to turn Tesla’s fortunes around, with his work at the White House leading to widespread protests outside its car dealerships across the U.S. and around the world.
And here’s another sobering figure for you: TSLA stock has shed 32.4% of its value since 2025 began.
Despite Donald Trump’s pro-crypto posturing, Musk hasn’t posted about Bitcoin at all since 2022 — indicating his enthusiasm for digital assets has waned substantially. His record of tweets has long shown that he’s been as much of a hindrance to the crypto markets as a help.
With analysts openly worried about the brand damage that the world’s richest man has inflicted on Tesla — and given he’s also preoccupied with his ownership of X — don’t expect Musk to suddenly start caring about Bitcoin anytime soon.
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