MUSK’S BITCOIN TWEET HURTS TESLA’S OWN BET IN CURRENCY

Elon Musk has upped his Twitter game, sending holders of Bitcoin and Tesla Inc. scrambling. The world’s richest man helped to send prices of both tumbling early Monday in the wake of his weekend comments that prices of Bitcoin and smaller rival Ether “do seem high.” The tweet came two weeks after Tesla announced it has added US$1.5 billion in Bitcoin to its balance sheet, triggering a 50-per-cent price jump in the surging digital asset. Both climbed off the lows of the day. Tesla holders have been through this before. In May 2020, Musk helped send Tesla shares down by 10 per cent after tweeting that the electric-car maker’s price was “too high.” Tesla shares were trading at around US$140 at that time, on a split-adjusted basis. That downdraft didn’t last long, with the stock closing at US$816.12 on Friday.