Tesla has left its sizeable Bitcoin stash untouched for another quarter even as it booked a $112m after-tax loss on its digital assets and reported weaker profits from its core business.
The electric car maker confirmed in its second-quarter shareholder update that it neither bought nor sold Bitcoin in the three months to 30 June, keeping its holding at 11,509 coins. That makes Tesla one of the largest publicly listed corporate holders of Bitcoin.
The loss, recorded under new US accounting rules for crypto assets, weighed on the firm’s earnings, although it did not involve any sale of Bitcoin or cash leaving the company.
Crypto bet turns against Tesla – on paper
Bitcoin’s steep price swings during the quarter were central to the reported loss.
The cryptocurrency traded near $83,000 at the start of the period before sliding to around $58,000 in late June. Under the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rules adopted by Tesla in 2024, eligible crypto assets must be measured at fair value each quarter, with gains or losses recognised directly in earnings.
That meant Tesla was required to mark its Bitcoin position down at the quarter’s reporting date, generating the $112m after-tax loss. By the time the company released its results, Bitcoin had rebounded to about $65,840 – but that recovery came too late to offset the loss booked for the period.
The company emphasised that the figure is a fair-value, or mark-to-market, loss – different from the impairment charges it recognised under the previous accounting model, which forced firms to record declines but prevented them from reflecting recoveries unless coins were sold.
At Bitcoin’s price of roughly $65,840 following the earnings release, Tesla’s 11,509 BTC holding was worth about $758m, although the number that appears in its accounts depends on the price at the exact quarter-end.
Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence also tracks 11,509 BTC in wallets linked to Tesla, corroborating the company’s disclosures.
No new Bitcoin buying – or selling
Tesla’s filings offered no indication that the company plans to restart large-scale Bitcoin purchases or further unwind its position. Instead, the unchanged balance extended a passive stance it has maintained since a major disposal in 2022.
Tesla originally entered the Bitcoin market in February 2021, when a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed a $1.5bn investment under a revised treasury policy designed, the company said, to diversify cash holdings and give it “more flexibility”.
Following that move, Tesla briefly allowed US customers to pay for cars in Bitcoin. Chief executive Elon Musk suspended the option in May 2021, citing concerns about the use of fossil fuels in Bitcoin mining and transactions.
In the second quarter of 2022, Tesla sold roughly 75% of its Bitcoin holdings, converting about $936m into cash. Mr Musk said the sale was driven by uncertainty over Covid-related shutdowns in China and a desire to bolster Tesla’s cash position, rather than a change of view on Bitcoin itself.
Since then, Tesla has held on to its remaining coins through several dramatic price cycles, including Bitcoin’s fall below $16,000 in late 2022, its subsequent recovery to record levels and the latest pullback during the second quarter of 2026.
The company had already reported a $173m after-tax loss on digital assets in the first quarter of 2026, as Bitcoin dropped from about $90,000 to around $68,000, again affecting the same 11,509-coin position.
Revenues rise but margins stay under pressure
Beyond crypto, Tesla’s operational performance offered a mixed picture.
Second-quarter revenue rose to $28.2bn, ahead of Wall Street forecasts of about $26.4bn and up from $22.5bn a year earlier. The increase was supported by a strong delivery performance: Tesla handed over 480,126 vehicles in the quarter, around 25% more than in the same period of 2025, making it one of the company’s biggest quarters by volume.
However, profitability remained under strain. Adjusted earnings were $0.33 per share, below analysts’ expectations, while net income slipped to about $1.11bn from $1.17bn a year earlier.
Automotive gross margin, excluding regulatory credits, improved to 16.3% from roughly 15% in the second quarter of 2025 but was well down on the 19.2% Tesla reported in the first three months of 2026.
Heavy investment also pulled free cash flow into negative territory, at minus $1.1bn. Tesla ended the quarter with around $43.5bn in cash and investments, while continuing to spend heavily on artificial intelligence infrastructure, new manufacturing capacity, its proposed robotaxi fleet and the Optimus humanoid robot.
In that context, the $112m paper loss on Bitcoin represented a relatively small but volatile element of the overall results – one that could continue to fluctuate as Tesla keeps its 11,509-coin reserve exposed to future swings in the cryptocurrency’s price at each quarter-end.
