Tesla Buried a $97M Bitcoin Bloodbath in Its ’Adjusted’ Earnings—Classic Wall Street Accounting
Tesla just pulled a Wall Street special—dressing up ugly losses with creative accounting. Their Q1 earnings report ’adjusted’ away a $97M Bitcoin hit, burying crypto volatility under non-GAAP fairy dust.
Key details they’d rather you ignore: The BTC rout slashed their digital stash value by 12% since last quarter. But hey—when your core auto business stumbles, why not blame the magic internet money?
Pro tip for Elon’s accountants: Next time, try reporting actual profits instead of playing shell games with volatile assets. The SEC might even buy it.
Tesla still holds over $1B in Bitcoin
This isn’t the first time that Elon Musk led Tesla to use digital assets to dress up the numbers. When Bitcoin rallied in late 2024, Tesla included a $600 million gain in its non-GAAP figures. Meanwhile, it still holds over $1 billion in Bitcoin and that might be the most stable part of its Q1 earnings.
According to the latest report, Tesla owns 11,509 BTC, valued at around $1.049 billion based on Arkham Intelligence data. This comes in the wake of new FASB accounting rules, which require companies to mark their crypto holdings to market each quarter.
The markdown wasn’t due to any sales drop, but rather reflecting Bitcoin performance in the first quarter. BTC price saw a downturn of 11.82% in this period. The biggest crypto is still down by 10% over the past 90 days. However, it has posted a recovery of 11% in the last 7 days. Bitcoin is trading at an average price of $93,660, at press time.
The global digital assets industry is riding the recovery wave for now as the cumulative crypto market cap inches closer to the $3 trillion mark.
Tesla shares up despite Q1 miss
Tesla also missed Wall Street’s expectations by pulling in $19.34 billion in Q1 revenue against the $21.37 billion analysts had forecast. Despite the undesirable earnings report, Tesla share price jumped by 6.5% in the last 5 trading sessions. It is trading at the average price of $259, while the share price is up by 4.5% in the pre-market session and might hit $264 later in the day.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) might plan to look into the matter as the watchdog has flagged similar practices before. The commission will likely keep a close eye on Tesla if it decides to suddenly include crypto gains in future quarters. Last year, the agency flagged Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital for similar creative trimming.
As of now, Musk is reportedly stepping back from the D.O.G.E team as Tesla’s profits nosedive and protests heat up. The White House says this was always the plan. But here’s the twist as Musk is technically a “special government employee” which means if he works fewer days, he can extend his government tenure past May.
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