Make Bitcoin Drop, Elon Musk Steps Down From The Position Of The Richest Person In The World

Elon Musk (Sumber: Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - Billionaire and boss of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk was forced to lose his ranking as the second richest person in the world. The position was replaced by the chairman of world luxury goods group LVMH, Bernard Arnault.

Musk's rating fell after his statement about Tesla no longer accepting bitcoin, as the payment system saw his fortune fall 24 percent from a January high as The Independent reported Tuesday 18 May.

For information, at the age of 72, Arnault added the largest fortune of nearly 47 billion US dollars. Arnault's total wealth reaches 161 billion US dollars, behind Jeff Bezos who is worth 190 billion US dollars. Meanwhile, Musk's wealth reaches 160.6 billion US dollars.

To be clear, I strongly believe in crypto, but it can't drive a massive increase in fossil fuel use, especially coal

- Elon Musk (elonmusk) May 13, 2021

Musk is known to have been in second place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index since March. Its auto industry, Tesla also saw its share fall by 2.2 percent last week, coinciding with a global defeat in technology stocks.

However, from the Forbes billionaire list report, Musk has been in third place since mid-April. Apparently, investors are quite disappointed with Musk after he was skeptical about bitcoin the last few days.

Initially, musk said Tesla could have sold off a very large stake in botcoin, which saw bitcoin drop by 15 percent last week. However, then the price of bitcoin stabilized when Musk denied his statement.

On the other hand, Musk claims to be working with the developer of the Shiba Inu themed meme coin to improve transaction efficiency. "To clarify the speculation, Tesla has not sold any Bitcoin," Musk said in a tweet on Twitter.

Not waiting long, Musk clarified again after the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies fell, after he said he was disappointed with bitcoin and Tesla would stop accepting it as payment for car purchases. Musk's decision was made amid concerns about the climate impact of cryptocurrencies.

According to the Bloomberg wealth index, the 49-year-old man's wealth has slumped to an estimated 9.1 billion this year, making him the highest drop among US billionaires.

He also became the world's richest person in January for a short period of time after Tesla's shares surged almost 750 percent last year despite the pandemic. He overtook Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates for the first time.