Tesla is missing a mysterious $1,400,000,000 from its books and experts are baffled
Tesla is missing a whopping $1,400,000,000 from its books and experts don't know where it went.
The electric car maker has been under fire recently with one of Tesla's earliest investors, Ross Gerber, urging CEO Elon Musk to step down. He classed the tech billionaire as too 'distracted' and warned that the company was turning into a political symbol as a result of his heavy political involvement.
"I think Tesla needs a new CEO and I decided today I was going to start saying it and so this is the first show that I'm saying it on," Gerber said. "It's time for somebody to run Tesla. The business has been neglected for too long."
Tesla's share value has also dropped over 37% to date, a downward spiral that’s wiped out over $800 billion in value since December 2024.
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Now, as per a recent Financial Times report, there’s $1.4 billion that seems to have gone missing from Tesla’s financial records.
According to its cashflow statements, the firm spent $6.3 billion on 'purchases of property and equipment excluding finance leases, net of sales' in the second half of 2024. But when you look at the company’s balance sheet, the total value of those assets only went up by $4.9 billion.
So, where did the other $1.4 billion go?
Well, it's possible there could be some technical reasons behind the mystery.
Wharton School professor of accounting Luzi Hail said the company could've 'sold off some [property, plant, and equipment], and we do not know what the net book value (the respective gross amounts) were.'
The difference could also be down to 'mergers and acquisitions transactions and foreign currency transactions,' added Hail.
What makes this more suspicious is that nothing like this has popped up in Tesla’s records over the last five years. The only likely way it would have been missed would be down to a huge accounting error.
At the same time, Tesla has been raising loads of money through new debt, which suggests that the company is still betting on big things to come.
But given the recent protests, vandalism, and growing tension around the brand, that optimism might be tested sooner than expected.
Meanwhile, Musk hasn’t done himself any favours. In a recent moment of corporate irony, the head of DOGE demanded government workers send him a summary of their weekly tasks or risk being fired.
And, earlier this month, layoffs were made at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention ordered by the Trump administration. But just days later, 180 former employees were shocked to receive an email informing them to return to work.