Bitcoin Boosts Tesla Profits By Almost $600 Million After Accounting Rule Change

Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Axelle/Bauer-Griffin

• Tesla profits rose 34% on a bitcoin boost last quarter following an accounting rule change.
• Tesla's paper gains on bitcoin accounted for nearly $600 million of its net income this quarter.
• The carrying value of Tesla's bitcoin stash surged from under $200 million to just over $1 billion.

Bitcoin made up a big chunk of Tesla's profits last quarter due to an accounting rule change that allowed the automaker to report its unrealized gains on the cryptocurrency as income in its latest earnings report.

Elon Musk's electric vehicle company recorded $589 million in paper gains on the crypto as profit, boosting its net income by 34% to $2.3 billion.

Tesla's finance chief, Vaibhav Taneja, confirmed on the company's earnings call there was a "$600 million mark-to-market benefit from bitcoin due to the adoption of a new accounting standard for digital assets."

The Financial Accounting Standards Board recently changed its policy to allow companies to mark their digital assets to market each quarter. Previously, they had to report their holdings at the lowest value those assets had ever reached under their ownership.

Tesla had been carrying its bitcoin hoard on its balance sheet at $184 million but marked it up to $1.076 billion last quarter. The fair market value of its digital assets was $729 million at the end of September, meaning they rose in value by nearly $350 million last quarter as bitcoin soared to record highs.

Tesla originally invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin in January 2021, when the token was trading in the $30,000 to $40,000 range, compared to around $105,000 now.

At the time, the company said it had updated its investment policy to give itself more flexibility to diversify and maximize returns on its spare cash. However, the carmaker sold about 75% of its bitcoin stash by the end of June 2022.

Crypto has seen a resurgence as President Donald Trump continues to embrace the nascent industry. He launched his own $Trump token shortly before his inauguration, and Trump Media & Technology Group announced it would expand into financial technology and crypto this week.