- Tesla recorded a $288 million pre-tax unrealized gain, or $224 million net of tax, on its digital assets balance in the third quarter of 2026
- The carrying value of Tesla’s digital assets rose to $962 million as of September 30, 2026, up from $674 million at the end of the second quarter
- It is the company’s best quarterly digital-asset mark since the third quarter of 2025, when it recorded an $80 million unrealized gain
Tesla’s third-quarter 2026 financial disclosures, released around the company’s October 21, 2026 earnings webcast, showed a $288 million pre-tax unrealized gain on the company’s digital assets balance, which consists primarily of the bitcoin Tesla has held on its balance sheet since 2021. Net of tax, that gain comes to $224 million, or about $0.06 per diluted share, based on figures disclosed in an exhibit filed alongside the quarter’s results.
The filing reports these figures under Accounting Standards Update 2023-08, the fair-value accounting framework that now governs how companies report cryptocurrency holdings on their balance sheets, requiring them to mark digital assets to current market value each reporting period rather than only recording losses through older impairment-based accounting rules. Tesla’s own filing does not use the word bitcoin directly, referring to the holdings only as digital assets, consistent with how the company has structured its disclosures since adopting the new accounting standard.
Looking at the carrying value of Tesla’s digital assets across the last five quarters shows a clear swing in fortunes tied to bitcoin’s price: $1,315 million at the end of the third quarter of 2025, falling to $1,008 million by the end of 2025, then to $786 million at the end of the first quarter of 2026, $674 million at the end of the second quarter, and now $962 million at the end of the third quarter of 2026. That rebound to $962 million represents the largest single-quarter dollar increase in the carrying value across that entire stretch.
The unrealized gain or loss figures tell a similar story of volatility: a $80 million gain in the third quarter of 2025, followed by a $307 million loss in the fourth quarter, a $222 million loss in the first quarter of 2026, a more modest $112 million loss in the second quarter, and now the $288 million gain in the third quarter, the strongest single-quarter result across the entire five-quarter window. The company’s trailing twelve-month pre-tax figure also improved meaningfully, moving to a $353 million loss as of the third quarter of 2026 from a $561 million loss as of the second quarter, showing the rolling annual picture improving even though it remains in negative territory overall.
Tesla has held bitcoin on its balance sheet since early 2021, making it one of the most closely watched non-crypto-native public companies for its digital asset exposure, even though the company has not added to or reduced that position in a publicly disclosed transaction in some time. The exhibit, filed with the SEC, did not disclose Tesla’s current bitcoin holdings in coin terms, reporting only the dollar carrying value and associated gain or loss figures.
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