Tesla is somehow missing $1.4 billion

$1.4 billion has gone unaccounted for at Elon Musk's EV car company Tesla. What's going on here?

Mar 20, 2025 - 17:46
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Tesla is somehow missing $1.4 billion
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Falling stock prices, plummeting car sales, protests, vandalism – it's all just another day in the year 2025 for Tesla now. 

Backlash against the company has become the norm, Musk's relationship with the Trump administration and his increasing involvement with right wing politics has made him very divisive. In turn, people are taking out their frustrations on Musk's golden goose, his EV car company Tesla.

But, among all of Tesla's now-everday woes, a brand new issue has seemingly just emerged.

Tesla is apparently missing $1.4 billion.

According to a new report from the Financial Times, there's nearly one and a half billion dollars missing from Tesla's coffers. The report looked into Tesla's cash flow statements and capital expenditures over the last 6 months of 2024 and compared it to the company's valuation of the assets it had acquired. The report found anomalies, namely the missing $1.4 billion.

In the third and fourth quarter of 2024, Tesla reportedly spent $6.3 billion on “purchases of property and equipment excluding finance leases, net of sales” according to its cashflow statements. However, on Tesla's balance sheet for the same period, the company reported that the gross value of property, plant and equipment went up by only $4.9 billion to $51 billion.

That's 1.4 billion that's, as the Financial Times puts it, "gone astray."

There are legitimate reasons to explain this. For example, asset sales or foreign exchange-related issues could account for the $1.4 billion gap.

However, according to the report, Tesla didn't report any of these issues. The company just left the $1.4 billion unaccounted for.

Mashable has contacted Tesla for comment, but has yet to receive a response.

We don't know why the money is unaccounted for, but the report certainly should make Tesla investors ask questions.