Tech billionaire Elon Musk ridiculed The Financial Times after it walked back a report implying that his auto company, Tesla, had a $1.4 billion sum that had "gone astray."
"Turns out @FT can't do finance," Musk posted on X on Wednesday while sharing a post including the FT's self-described "mea culpa" about its article, Mediaite reported.
Last week, the publication flagged a mismatch between what Tesla was reporting as its capital investment, $6.3 billion in the last half of 2024, and a $4.9 billion increase in gross assets for the same period.
But on Tuesday, the newspaper said there was likely a "benign explanation" for the difference and said the misunderstanding could be blamed on the "always difficult" task of "reconciling accrual-based accounts with cash accounts."
"Having last week got rather excited by the minutiae of Tesla's accounting… it's time to row back," The Financial Times said.
Expert correspondents clarified that the reconciling process can be tricky, and that when credit purchase, asset disposals, and depreciation were combined, the gap narrowed to about $463 million.
But that discrepancy could also be the result of write-offs or currency movements.
"The crack we're left with at Tesla is now small enough — just under half a billion dollars — to be filled with some combination of foreign exchange movements, non-material asset write-offs, or the sale of machinery or equipment close to its not-fully depreciated value," The Financial Times said.
The publication added: "One unavoidable conclusion is that at a certain point it's necessary to trust the auditor's judgment."