Tesla sits tight on 11,509 bitcoin and books a $288 million pre-tax paper gain, while its operating profit falls 56% and the shares slip after hours

Tesla did not touch its bitcoin in the third quarter. The carmaker's results, released after the close on Wednesday, showed 11,509 bitcoin at the end of September, the same as at the end of June, Bloomingbit reported from the company's quarterly update; BigGo Finance said no coins were sold.

The coins were worth more on paper. The carrying value of Tesla's digital assets rose to $962 million from $674 million at the end of June, a gain of about 42.7%, per Bloomingbit, which said the quarter carried an unrealized gain on digital assets of $288 million before tax and $224 million after tax. Electrek said GAAP net income of $787 million reflected that gain, alongside a $142 million unrealized loss on the SpaceX shares Tesla holds.

The rest of the quarter was harder. Revenue was flat at about $28 billion, operating income fell 56% from a year earlier to $718 million and net income fell 43%, Electrek reported, as research and development spending rose 69%. Free cash flow was $1.53 billion and cash and investments stood at $45.4 billion. Tesla cut its full-year capital spending plan to about $20 billion from $25 billion or more, per Bloomingbit and Stocktwits, which reported that the new figure was given on the earnings call. The shares, up about 2% right after the report, were down about 4% during the call, Stocktwits reported.

The bitcoin figure matters because of the merger talk. Elon Musk said on SpaceX's earnings call on Tuesday that he thought Tesla and SpaceX had each formed a special committee of independent directors to discuss combining, per Yahoo Finance, and that a merger should not be assumed to be a certainty. Cryptoweek reported on Wednesday morning that the two companies together hold about 30,000 bitcoin.