Electric vehicle company Tesla made no changes to its Bitcoin holdings for the fifth quarter in a row, while substantially increasing its computing capacity to advance its artificial intelligence efforts, according to its Q3 2023 earnings report released on October 18.
Tesla has held $184 million worth of Bitcoin since Q1 2022 after selling off approximately 75% of its original $1.5 billion investment in the cryptocurrency in Q2 last year. Meanwhile, the company reported it “more than doubled the size” of its computing power for AI projects in Q3, citing a growing training data set and the switch to AI from coded software for training its Optimus humanoid robot.
“We have commissioned one of the world’s largest supercomputers to accelerate the pace of our AI development, with compute capacity more than doubling compared to Q2,” Tesla stated in its report.
Overall, Tesla missed Wall Street earnings and revenue estimates for the quarter. Total Q3 revenues hit $23.35 billion, up nearly 9% year-over-year but below the $24.38 billion projected. Reported Q3 earnings per share came in at $0.66 versus the expected $0.72.
Operating expenses also jumped over 13% from last quarter and 42.5% from Q3 2022 to $2.41 billion. R&D costs specifically rose 58% annually to $1.16 billion, which Tesla attributed to Cybertruck, AI, and other projects.
Following the mixed report, Tesla shares fell 4.8% to close at $242.68 on October 18. The stock slipped another 4.25% to $232.37 in after-hours trading.
