It appears that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has slipped to third place in the world’s in the ranking of the world’s richest, as his company’s shares continue to lose steam in the stock market.
The eccentric billionaire, who recently climbed to the top spot in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index before being pushed down a rank by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, was edged down from the runner-up position by luxury goods conglomerate LVMH chairman Bernard Arnaut. The sudden decline in Musk’s fortune, which has fallen by nearly 25% since January, is now valued at approximately $160.6 billion.
Tesla’s recent poor performance in the stock market is the culprit behind its CEO’s slowly receding wealth, as Musk’s bitcoin-themed twitter posts may finally be catching up to him. On Sunday, Musk once again sent bitcoin plummeting, after investors took his single-word tweet as a hint that the billionaire is contemplating selling (or has already sold) Tesla’s bitcoin holdings.
The tweet sent the cryptocurrency market into a tailspin, as bitcoin dropped to below $42,450— marking the sharpest drop in over three months. Although the world’s biggest cryptocurrency regained some of the lost momentum after Musk took to twitter once again to clarify that Tesla has not sold any bitcoin, the cryptocurrency is still hovering at around $42,800 at the time of writing.
Last week, Musk dealt a serious blow to bitcoin, after he used twitter to announce that Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin as payment due to environmental concerns stemming from the coin’s mining. Back in February, the billionaire announced that Tesla has purchased $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin, sending the token’s price soaring to new record-highs.
Information for this briefing was found via Bloomberg. The author has no securities or affiliations related to this organization. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security. The author holds no licenses.
