Jeff Bezos back as richest man in the world as Elon Musk's net worth falls by $15 billion

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has again slipped to the number two position in the list of the world's richest people after a decline in Tesla's share. The reason -- a tweet by social media savvy Musk. The EV firm stock saw its biggest decline in value at 8.6 per cent since September 2020, and Musk's net worth dipped by $15.2 billion in just a day. As per the latest Bloomberg Billionaire Index data, Jeff Bezos has returned to the number one spot at $186 billion net worth, while Musk's net worth stood at $183 billion. Microsoft founder Bill Gates is still holding on to the third position at $135 billion.

Tesla recorded a sharp decline in its stock after Musk tweeted on Saturday last week when he said Bitcoin and Ether prices "do seem high" and that the Bitcoin price has risen too quickly. This not only fuelled a sharp decline in Tesla share but led to a major fall in Bitcoin's price. The world's biggest cryptocurrency saw as much as a 12.5 per cent decline on Tuesday.

Before this, Musk on February 19 had reclaimed the title of the world's richest person as his wealth shot up to $199.9 billion after SpaceX concluded another funding round. Musk's tweet last week sent the cryptocurrency on a skyrocketing high of more than $58,000 but his tweet during the weekend resulted in the fall of the cryptocurrency in a matter of a few hours. Bitcoin suffered a drop of more than $8,000 on Monday.

Also read: Funding alert: Elon Musk's SpaceX raises $850 million, valuation zooms $74 billion

Commenting on a tweet by Peter Schiff, Chief Market Strategist, Europac, in which he vouched for gold, Musk said an "email saying you have gold is not the same as having gold". "You might as well have crypto," he added. Another tweet by Musk on Tesla's Model Y Standard Range SUV, saying it is available "off the menu" as the SUV is yet to meet "Tesla's standard of excellence", also caused a fall in its share.

Bezos, who had held the title of the world's richest person for over three years until last month, had regained his number one position with a net worth of $191.2 billion for a brief period this week, knocking off the Tesla chief from the top spot.

Also read: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates--Which billionaire has lowest carbon footprint?

Musk has been at the front and centre of some of the biggest market events so far this year. The eccentric billionaire fanned the flames of GameStop Corp share rally and sent the stocks of Shopify Inc., Signal Advance Inc., Etsy Inc., and CD Projekt SA rolling with his booster shot tweets. He also stirred up the price of Bitcoin and even Dogecoin, a little-known cryptocurrency that surged after his tweet earlier this month.

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