Elon Musk got $15 billion poorer in one day after Bitcoin tweets

Bitcoin screeched to a halt early Monday after Elon Musk tweeted that the crypto’s prices were excessive.

Market observers were anticipating another wild run, but not today.

Before the Tesla top honcho’s Twitter comment — before that, he even said Bitcoin (BTC) was as “b.s.” as fiat money — bitcoin breached the $57,000 mark for the first time on Saturday triggering a broad rally among other cryptos.

As of Monday, Bitcoin (BTC) plunged more than 10%, briefly falling below the $50,000 level.

As a result, the retreat caused Tesla’s shares to slide 8.6%, wiping more than $15 billion from Musk’s net value.

Poor Musk, he is no longer the wealthiest man in the world.

Tesla representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Down for a second day

Bitcoin, which has soared more than 400% over the past year, collapsed for a second day on Tuesday, at one instance dropping to as low as $47,700 on doubts over the strength of its continued rally.

It’s worth noting that price swings of over 10% are common in the crypto landscape. Bitcoin once jumped to nearly $20,000 in 2017 before losing 80% of its value the following year.

Musk now occupies the second spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index of the world’s 500 wealthiest people with a net value of $184 billion — down from a peak of $210 billion last month.

Jeff Bezos, the Amazon.com founder, reclaimed the top spot even as his wealth dropped by $3.7 billion to $186 billion on Monday.

Still up this year

Bitcoin is still up more than 80% so far this year. Last week, the leading digital asset registered $1 trillion in market value for the first time. It’s now back below that level, CoinDesk said.

Monday’s market sell-off also dealt a heavy blow on some of the world’s ultra-rich.

Zhong Shanshan, the richest man in Asia, was the second-biggest loser on the Bloomberg index, losing $5 billion as his bottled-water company shed 4.5%.

Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s Pony Ma, Reliance Industries’ Mukesh Ambani, and Colin Huang of Pinduoduo Inc all lost more than $2.5 billion each.

Image courtesy of Bloomberg Quicktake: Now/YouTube Screenshot