Itâs not the first time a Tweet has resulted in trouble for Elon Musk, but this one is arguably his most expensive.
Thatâs if you believe the speculation that a recent online comment about cryptocurrency Bitcoin was enough to send Teslaâs stock skidding and, with it, Muskâs personal fortune.
According to Bloomberg, a weekend Tweet may have played a role in Mondayâs rocky day on the stock market for Tesla, as the auto companyâs highly valuable stock slipped 8.6 percent. The Saturday prior, Muskâs waxed philosophical on money as âdataâ in a modernized barter system, before concluding that valuations of top cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum âseem high.â
If it were any other social media user, perhaps that mild comment goes unnoticed. But when youâre the CEO of Tesla and Tesla just bought a half a billion dollars worth of Bitcoin, maybe your stockholders get a little squirrely.
And theyâve ridden this rollercoaster before. Donât forget it was just last May when Musk Tweeted that he thought Teslaâs own stock price was too high, sending shares tumbling a full 12 percent in the following half hour alone. The comments also drew scrutiny from observers who questioned whether they were in violation of an agreement heâd made with the SEC after the agency sued him in 2018⌠for other comments made - you guessed it - on Twitter that impacted the price of his stock.
In this case, the biggest loser in Teslaâs valuation dip was Musk himself, who reportedly owns more than 240 million shares. The Monday slide was enough to send him back to the number two position in the worldâs richest race, behind Jeff Bezos once again but, as always, subject to shift with the winds of Twitter.
As for the collateral damage, Bitcoin was not exempt: the cryptocurrency, which has reached record highs in recent weeks, took a 17 percent tumble Monday as well.
