Tesla’s third-quarter update, filed with the SEC on October 21, lists digital assets of $962 million as of September 30, up from $674 million at the end of June, a rise of 42.7%. The increase came entirely from mark-to-market revaluation. Tesla neither bought nor sold a coin during the quarter.
The position has not changed size in at least nine months. Tesla’s June 30 filing states that the majority of its digital assets were 11,509 Bitcoin held at an acquisition cost of $386 million. The December 31 filing carries the same two figures, so the coin count has stayed flat while the dollar value swung with the market. At $962 million, the position sits $576 million above cost, an unrealized gain of roughly 149 percent. The implied mark works out to about $83,600 per coin, in line with where Bitcoin traded in the final days of September.
Over the five quarters through September, the digital-asset line ran $1,315 million in the third quarter of 2025, then $1,008 million, $786 million, and $674 million in the following three quarters, before recovering to $962 million. The matching unrealized gains and losses were an $80 million gain, then losses of $307 million, $222 million, and $112 million, then a $288 million gain. Tesla carries the assets at fair value, so each swing flows through the income statement. The recovery is Tesla’s first quarter-over-quarter increase in the position in a year, and it happened without a single trade.
The third-quarter gain was worth $224 million after tax, about $0.06 per share. That one line equaled more than a third of the $787 million Tesla reported in GAAP net income. The gain required no operational activity; it followed the price of Bitcoin. Tesla has not sold the coins, so no cash changed hands.
The company removes the swing from its preferred profit yardstick. A footnote states that beginning in the first quarter of 2025, adjusted EBITDA is presented net of digital-asset gains and losses. On that basis, adjusted EBITDA came to $3.9 billion in the quarter, against $4.2 billion a year earlier. Revenue was roughly flat at $28.0 billion, and income from operations fell to $718 million from $1,624 million a year earlier. None of those figures include the Bitcoin mark.
The mechanism is not unique to Tesla. Any company that holds Bitcoin reports the price change as income even when it does nothing, because the asset is marked to market every quarter. Earnings can rise or fall on a price nobody inside the company controlled. The same treatment applies to Tesla’s SpaceX stake, which produced a $1.0 billion gain in the second quarter and a $142 million loss in the third.
For shareholders, the practical effect is modest but real. The after-tax gain added about $0.06 to earnings per share, a figure that would not exist if the coin had fallen instead. The 43% jump reflects the market’s valuation of the position, not a change in Tesla’s view of it: the coin count and the cost basis are unchanged, and only the price moved. The next hard data point is Tesla’s fourth-quarter 10-Q, which will show whether the company kept the 11,509 coins or finally moved the position. Until then, the $962 million line reflects a price change rather than a decision.
Adapted from Tesla’s Bitcoin Hoard Swells 43% to $962 Million Without a Single Sale.