This morning, rumors circulated of a surprise bitcoin (BTC) purchase by Elon Musk’s Tesla. Citing a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, social media users screenshotted supposed proof that Tesla had purchased BTC in the fourth quarter of 2024 and increased its stack to 11,509 BTC.
However, the filing doesn’t reveal any new purchases. It’s been common knowledge that Tesla has owned at least 11,509 BTC throughout 2024 and as early as the first quarter of 2023.
Tesla has moved its BTC to various new wallets, including an October 2024 transfer to prime custody. However, its holdings haven’t increased in years.
Some of today’s confusion stems from a BTC tracking website for corporations, NVK’s BitcoinTreasuries.net, which inaccurately indicates that Tesla might have recently added BTC to its balance sheet.
That website, however, is an admitted hobby project and is not exhaustively researched or maintained.
In fact, the world has known that Tesla has owned 11,509 BTC since at least the first quarter of 2023. The corporation made no new purchases in 2024.
In fact, rather than buying BTC over time, Tesla’s corporate holdings have actually decreased dramatically.
The company’s all-time high BTC ownership was actually in 2021 when it owned 43,200 coins. Had it not offloaded the extra 31,691 BTC it held as of February 8, 2021, it could have been sitting on an additional $1.6 billion.
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Musk continues to focus on other areas of crypto aside from BTC — especially DOGE. He’s a fan of the memecoin and leads a US governmental advisory group of the same name. Tesla didn’t own any DOGE as of its December 31, 2024 earnings report.
