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by NotSammyHagar 876 days ago
In the case of tesla they have a big bundle of cash sitting somewhere that they can't recognize until they ship full self driving/fsd, and they are probably never going to ship that imho
1 comments

Could you describe what does it mean "can't recognize"? Where I live you can use deposits as you like...
Somehow due to accounting rules in the US, companies can take payment for software before it is done, and they can't count it as revenue somehow. So it sits there waiting for the feature to be done. I've seen it at big software companies in the us and at tesla (which is kind of a software company too). Found this random person on reddit who discusses it. Who knows if it is accurate but it matches what I've read elsewhere. https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/10qpasz/tesla_co...
Seems like the same thing, basically. So this means they can use the money but don't have to tax it yet.