Tesla maintains Bitcoin holdings while directing resources toward AI
Tesla published its Q3 2023 shareholder deck on Oct. 18, indicating that it continues to hold its Bitcoin balance as it directs resources to AI efforts.
The company reported $184 million in digital assets, known to be composed largely or entirely of Bitcoin (BTC), for the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2023.
That amount is equal to Tesla’s holdings for the three previous quarters but represents a long-term decrease due to earlier sales and price changes. Tesla originally purchased $1.5 billion of Bitcoin in 2021, an amount that once surpassed $2 billion in value. However, the company sold most of its Bitcoin in 2022, causing it to report just $218 million in digital assets for the quarters ending June 30, 2022, and Sept. 30, 2022.
In the same shareholder deck, Tesla detailed its objectives concerning its vehicle and energy businesses and, significantly, its artificial intelligence endeavors. It said:
“We have more than doubled the size of our AI training compute to accommodate for our growing dataset as well as our Optimus robot project. Our humanoid robot is currently being trained for simple tasks through AI rather than hard-coded software, and its hardware is being further upgraded in order to handle datasets.”
In terms of general earnings, the company reported $23.4 billion in revenue, down approximately 6% from $24.9 billion in Q2 2023. On both occasions, the company’s automotive business accounted for the vast majority of overall revenue.
Investors want to hear about crypto
Several investors have again submitted several crypto-related questions, including one on whether Tesla would add Bitcoin payments for its charging network and another asking if Tesla’s Dojo supercomputer would make use of Bitcoin.
Several people asked whether the company plans to once again Bitcoin and crypto payments in general. This is in line with Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s earlier promise to accept Bitcoin once the mining industry is 50% reliant on renewable energy.
Tesla’s shareholder call was ongoing at press time.