Elon Musk may have one single Tweet to blame for Tesla's one day loss of $15 billion. It sounds shocking and is a reminder that when billionaires talk, people listen. Sometimes, though, that statement isn't a positive.
Recently replaced atop the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk's downfall still keeps him richer than all but one person in the entire world. Still, the thought of such a massive drop in such a short period of time is something that any analyst would want to analyze. In Elon's case, it might be all about Bitcoin.
The company's biggest decline since September seems to have been partially fueled by Musk’s comments over the weekend regarding the prices of Bitcoin and its smaller competitor, Ether. All it took was a person of his stature to say that their costs “do seem high.” Couple that with the timing of the Tweet - two weeks after Tesla sunk $1.5 Billion into Bitcoin - and that's when the wheels came off.
While Bitcoin may have soared over 400% throughout the past year, it has started to stumble a bit amid skepticism about its durability. At one point on Tuesday, it even dipped below $50,000. Keeping in line with that, Tesla shares also continued their slide in early New York trading.
Aside from innovation and technology, Musk is also adept at Twitter controversy. The outspoken billionaire has been out speaking his mind across the social media platform for years and there have been more than a few hiccups along the way.
In May 2020, he saw Tesla fall to the tune of $14 Billion. How? By telling the world that the stock was too high. It didn't require any reading between lines or overanalyzing. He genuinely said "Tesla stock price is too high imo."
That's it. That's the Tweet.
One commenter quickly replied, "Dude...I lost $10k because of this tweet. Wtf is wrong with u".
Elon has made comments on Twitter about selling all his possessions, wanting to take his companies private, and even one where he demanded we "FREE AMERICA NOW" one month into the COVID pandemic. He may be playing by his own rules, but many sometimes wonder what those rules are.
Of course, that's the double-edged sword of Twitter. While some use it for trolling and others use it to bond with their audience, some like Musk, are seen as the spoon that stirs a number of pots. In Elon's case, that pot is boiling over in the finance world and it takes little more than a poorly-worded remark to shock the system.
The problem, though, could be us. After all, he warned us two years ago about all of this.
The single tweet, "My Twitter is pretty much complete nonsense at this point", appears to make complete sense in hindsight.
Sources: Yahoo, Bloomberg, Interesting Engineering