Elon Musk loses world’s richest title: One tweet on Bitcoin costs him $15
Elon Musk has been one of the biggest supporters of cryptocurrency. Tesla’s chief’s tweets in support of Bitcoin and Dogecoin along with Tesla’s investment have boosted the prices of major cryptocurrencies in the past few weeks, However, one of his recent tweets has cost Musk a whopping $15.2 billion in a day. This happened as Tesla Inc. shares slid 8.6% on Monday, wiping Musk’s wealth, who is no longer the world’s richest man.
The sharp decline in Tesla shares happened after Musk’s comments over the weekend that the prices of Bitcoin and smaller rival Ether “do seem high.” The tweet came just two weeks after Tesla had added $1.5 billion in Bitcoin to its balance sheet. The company had also announced that it is ready to accept cryptocurrency as a means of payment for its electric cars.
World’s Richest Person
Mush has dropped back to the second position on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth of $183.4 billion which is down from a peak of $210 billion in January. On the other hand, Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos has reclaimed the top spot even after his fortune took a fall of $3.7 billion to $186.3 billion on Monday. Musk has been swapping the top spot with Bezos since January as the value of Tesla fluctuated.
Tesla investment and Bitcoin rise
Only two weeks ago Elon Musk’s Tesla had invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. It is also believed that Musk acquired 43,000 bitcoins during various operations in January. The transaction raised the company’s market value above one trillion dollars for the first time. There was a massive jump in Bitcoin prices as well. The cryptocurrency crossed the $58,000 per unit value for the first time on Sunday night. This is almost double the $29,000 it cost on January 27, its lowest price so far this year.
Tables turned on February 22. On Monday, there was a sharp decline of between 8 to 10 percent in Bitcoin value. This brought the value down to $53,000. With this, Musk has dropped to the second spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index of the world’s 500 richest people with a net worth of $183.4 billion. Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos reclaimed the top spot even as his fortune fell by $3.7 billion to $186.3 billion.