Elon Musk is no longer the richest man in the world. He fell far behind Jeff Bezos and several specialists claim that it is a consequence of his investment in Bitcoin.
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February 24, 2021 2 min read
On Monday, Elon Musk lost his position as the world’s richest person , after losing more than $ 15 billion of his net worth in a single day. This after Tesla shares plunged more than 10% after investing 1.5 billion dollars in Bitcoin (BTC) .
With the recent drop, Tesla racks up losses by 25% in just one week, according to Forbes data. Thus, the electric car company has lost about $ 215 billion in market capitalization.
To put it in perspective, before the investment in Bitcoin , the company’s market capitalization was around $ 844 billion. It now stands at roughly $ 620 billion.
The crash is, in part, the consequence of a general contraction in US markets, but there is also speculation that it would be due to the company’s investment in cryptocurrencies.
Literally pic.twitter.com/XBAUqiVsPH
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 24, 2021
What happened between Elon Musk, Tesla and Bitcoin?
On February 8, Tesla announced the billion dollar purchase of Bitcoin units for $ 1.5 billion. The transaction shot the cryptocurrency to an all-time high, surpassing $ 58,000 per unit . However, a few hours later it plunged to $ 53,000 , causing investors billionaire losses.
Many attribute the fall of the cryptocurrency to a tweet from Musk, where he said that the price of Bitcoin “appears to be high .” It is speculated that the words of the tycoon caused the recent fall of the Bitcoin and many specialists believe that he himself ‘stood up’ by criticizing an asset in which he had just invested.
Musk is no longer the richest person in the world
For several weeks now, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have been taking turns occupying the top spot in the Forbes Billionaire Rankings.
Last Wednesday, February 17, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX had a fortune of 191,000 million dollars, while that of the founder of Amazon was 191,300 million dollars, that’s how closed the difference was!
However, after this series of losses, Musk’s fortune declined about 13% in just one week, falling to $ 166.1 billion on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Bezos woke up Wednesday with a net worth of $ 186 billion and the richest person in the world.
Can Elon Musk come back and take Jeff Bezos’ job (again)? We will have to be pending.