In recent years Elon Musk has been a staunch advocate for cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin and Dogecoin being two of his favourites. It is part of the reason why Tesla announced that it would buy $1.5 billion in Bitcoin last February as the company planned to accept crypto for EV purchases.

The latter half of the plan did not pan out, as Tesla abandoned its decision to facilitate crypto purchases, but it still held on to the digital assets.

Well that was the case before this week’s Q2 quarterly earnings call (PDF), where the company has sold 75 percent of its crypto assets, with the figure estimated at around $936 million.

The report confirms that the remaining digital assets under Tesla control now totals $218 million, representing a significant depreciation when added to the aforementioned $936 million and compared to the $1.5 billion the company purchased the assets for originally.

As The Verge points out, Musk noted in July of last year following the purchase that, “I might pump but I don’t dump. I definitely do not believe in getting the price high and selling or anything like that. I would like to see Bitcoin succeed.”

While it is indeed up for debate whether Musk has held true to those words, he did address the sale during the earnings call, stating that the action by Tesla, “should not be taken as some verdict on Bitcoin.”

Musk also cited that he was, “concerned about overall liquidity of the company given COVID shutdowns in China.”

As such, it looks like Tesla decided to sell a sizeable chunk of its Bitcoin in order to help improve the look of its balance sheet, with $2.26 billion in profit announced for the latest quarter. This marks a 31 percent decrease compared to the previous quarter, potentially signalling a necessary change in strategy for the company.

Whether that will happen remains to be seen, but with production on the Cybertruck yet to begin, a number of employees recently being let go and a looming court case to push through his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, Musk and co. have some interesting financial quarters ahead.

If you are interested in listening to the hour-long earnings call, you can do so in the video below.