Tesla is selling 75 percent of its Bitcoin holdings

The electric car maker invested around $1.5 billion in Bitcoin last year. Also: According to “Bloomberg”, e-scooter provider Marti is about to announce its IPO and Faze Clan has started via Spac on the Nasdaq technology exchange.

Good morning! While you slept, work continued elsewhere in the digital scene.

The top topics:

Tesla has sold most of his bitcoins. At the end of the quarter, the electric car maker sold about 75 percent of its Bitcoin holdings. The group had invested around 1.5 billion US dollars in Bitcoin last year, but sold part of it a little later. In the last quarter, Bitcoin collapsed massively. Tesla said the sale added $936 million to cash on its balance sheet over the past quarter. CEO Elon Musk called the sale a reaction to the difficult situation in Shanghai: “Given the uncertainty caused by the Covid lockdowns in China, it was important for us to maximize our cash position.”

The US electric car manufacturer also announced an increase in profits. The bottom line for the past quarter was $2.26 billion, compared to $1.14 billion a year ago. Revenue fell to $16.93 billion from $18.76 billion in the second quarter, missing analysts’ expectations. Tesla has raised the prices of its cars several times this year. Tesla shares climbed around four percent in after-hours trading. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt, Süddeutsche Zeitung, CNBC, Bloomberg und Techcrunch]

On Gründerszene you read today: The Berlin startup Charles has found a way for online shops to communicate with their customers via Whatsapp. This week, Charles raised 20 million euros from VCs, including those from Silicon Valley. We have the presentation for you that the founders used to look for investors. [Mehr bei Gründerszene+]

And here are the other headlines of the night:

The Turkish e-scooter provider Marti according to “Bloomberg” is about to announce the IPO. Marti would be the first Turkish company to go public on the New York Stock Exchange via a Spac merger. According to an insider, the deal between Marti Technologies and Galata Acquisition Corp., a New York-listed special purpose vehicle, is now set to be finalized after months of negotiations. The two companies declined to comment on the merger. With around 55,000 vehicles, the Marti fleet is the largest in the country: The company currently rents out electric bicycles, scooters and mopeds in 20 cities in Turkey. [Mehr bei Bloomberg]

Faze Clan, a games company, launched via Spac on the Nasdaq technology exchange. The company had already announced its plans last fall to go public with a value of one billion US dollars per spac. Since then, the esports specialist has reshuffled its board with media powerhouses like World Wrestling Entertainment’s chief brand officer and rapper Snoop Dogg. The new deal valued the combined company at $725 million, down $275 million from the previously expected valuation. “FAZE” shares lost almost 25 percent in value after their debut on Wednesday. [Mehr bei CNBC, The Verge und The Information]

The Dutch chip supplier ASML has registered a new record of orders. Chip manufacturers ordered equipment worth 8.5 billion euros in the second quarter. CEO Peter Wennink halved the sales forecast for 2022: Revenue would only increase by ten percent. The ASML paper fell by up to four percent in Amsterdam at the start of trading. During the course of the day, the price rose by more than three percent to over 500 euros. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt und Wall Street Journal]

Microsoft has announced that it will be eliminating many vacancies. This includes jobs at his Azure cloud business and at the security software unit. The company said it is worthy of job offers already made for vacancies and will make some exceptions for critical positions. Microsoft is thus extending the slowdown in settings announced in May, which mainly affects the Windows, Office and Teams groups. [Mehr bei Bloomberg und CNBC]

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO von Meta, and Sheryl Sandberg, who resigned as Meta’s chief operating officer in June, will testify in a court case alleging Facebook illegally shared user data with research firm Cambridge Analytica. Users sued the group after it became known that the British research company had access to the data of up to 87 million Facebook users. The company had teamed up with Donald Trump’s campaign team to gain access to users’ private data. [Mehr bei The Guardian und Bloomberg]

Our reading tip on Gründerszene: Previously there was at Considerable only voluntary employee representation. Now employees want to push through a works council. [Mehr bei Gründerszene]

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A nice Thursday!

Your Gründerszene editors