…Loses $15bn in a day
BY DARLEY OGBODO
It is no longer news that Elon Musk is no longer the world’s richest person after Tesla Inc. shares slid 8.6 per cent on Monday, wiping $15.2 billion from his net worth, a dependable news feed source has indicated.
Musk’s slipped from the numero uno financial status has been largely attributed to Tesla’s decline which was fueled in part by Musk’s comments over the weekend that the prices of Bitcoin and smaller rival Ether “do seem high.” His message — via his favored medium of Twitter — came two weeks after Tesla announced it has added $1.5 billion in Bitcoin to its balance sheet.
The report indicated that Musk also tweeted earlier on Monday that the company’s Model Y Standard Range SUV would still be available “off the menu,” backing up reports from electric vehicle news site Electrek that the model had been removed from its online
Inevitably, Musk dropped to second on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index (BBI) of the world’s 500 richest people with a net worth of $183.4 billion.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Inc. founder moved in to reclaim the top spot even as his fortune fell by $3.7 billion to $186.3 billion.The two billionaires have been swapping and alternating positions since the beginning of this year as the value of Tesla fluctuated.
Recalled that Musk briefly overtook Bezos after his rocket company SpaceX raised $850 million earlier this month, valuing the company at $74 billion, a 60 per cent jump from August.
Bezos occupied the top spot on the ranking for 3 straight years prior to January, when Musk eclipsed the e-commerce titan, which has been attributed to a 794 per cent rally in Tesla shares.—Bloomberg news feed.