Elon Musk loses $15 billion in a day after Bitcoin warning

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.

Tesla’s decline 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.

Musk also tweeted earlier 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 configurator.

Elon Musk drops to second on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index of the world’s 500 richest people with a net worth of $183.4 billion. Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos reclaimed the top spot even as his fortune fell by $3.7 billion to $186.3 billion.

The two billionaires have been swapping places this year as the value of Tesla fluctuated. 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.

Jeff Bezos occupied the top spot on the ranking for three straight years prior to Jan, when Musk eclipsed the e-commerce titan thanks to a 794 per cent rally in Tesla shares.