Realistically we won't know until the Q2 financials are out.

Note the wording "*will not* be selling any Bitcoin" not "*has not* sold any Bitcoin". There were major dumps a couple minutes before Elon's announcement. It should be no surprise if Tesla front-run Elon's announcement, knowing that it would affect the price.

They'll keep a trivial amount on the financials, but I suspect the majority was off the books.

They will also use this an excuse to realize revenue in what will appear to be a very lean quarter. I mean they can't exactly sell to "test liquidity" again.

They are publically on record as having bought $1.5billion Bitcoin.

I don't think that counts as a trivial amount on the financials.

From their Q1 disclosure, Tesla made $272 Million from 'Proceeds from sales of digital assets' [1]. From the same disclosure, Tesla still holds $1,331 Million (~$1.3 Billion) of digital assets. As this is from their Q1 disclosure, they may have sold more since March 31st.

[1] https://ir.tesla.com/

Why do you need to own Bitcoin for transactions?

Someone wants to buy a 50k car. They give you 50k worth of Bitcoin. You immediately sell the Bitcoin for 50k of dollars.

At no time did you need to own Bitcoin before the transaction.

I read it as implying Tesla intends to use BTC for outgoing payments.

Of course, that would require Tesla's vendors to start accepting BTC. I strongly suspect LG Chem and Panasonic don't accept bitcoin payments.