Elon Musk Lost $15B In A Single Day And The Cause Could Be One Of His Own Tweets

Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk is no longer the world’s richest person, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

What Happened: Musk was replaced by Amazon.com, Inc AMZN CEO Jeff Bezos as the richest person on the list after Tesla shares fell 8.6% on Monday eroding $15.2 billion from his net wealth, according to Bloomberg.

A tweet by Musk over the weekend which touched on the high valuation of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) furthered the entrepreneur’s decline in wealth.

That said, BTC & ETH do seem high lol

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2021

Musk falls to second place on the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index with a net worth of $183.4 billion, while Bezos has a net worth of $186.3 billion.

Why It Matters: This month, Tesla invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin and said it expects to accept the cryptocurrency as a means of payment in the near future. 

See also: How to Buy Bitcoin (BTC)

Tesla’s $1.5 billion BTC investment is worth nearly $2.5 billion, a gain of almost 70%, at the press-time BTC price of $52,040.21.

Market strategist Peter Schiff —  a noted gold bug and a Bitcoin critic— commented on the decline in the prices of Tesla shares post the company’s BTC purchase.

Two weeks after @elonmusk announced that he spent $1.5 billion of shareholder money buying Bitcoin, #Tesla stock entered a bear market, plunging 20% from its all-time high set on Jan. 25th, and 16% since disclosing the #Bitcoin buy. Not an example other CEOs will likely follow!

— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) February 22, 2021

Musk and Bezos have been trading places as the world’s richest persons since January 2021.

Price Action: Tesla shares closed nearly 8.5% lower at $714.50 on Monday and fell almost 0.5% in the after-hours session. On the same day, Amazon shares closed 2.13% lower at $3,180.74.

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Photo courtesy: Forbes via Wikimedia