Elon Musk just can’t help it. On Friday he caused a stir with a cryptic tweet on the Twitter platform. The Tesla CEO and formerly great enthusiast for the largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin only needed a word and a character to shake Bitcoin’s value.
The Bitcoin exchange rate fell from $ 39,000 for a Bitcoin to $ 36,000 on Friday morning, dropping by almost 6 percent. A broken heart was to blame, which Elon Musk tweeted at 3 a.m. German time and tagged it with the hashtag Bitcoin. Below that, he linked a picture of a couple separating.
#Bitcoin 💔 pic.twitter.com/lNnEfMdtJf
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 4, 2021
There was no explanation from the multi-billionaire. On the contrary – he only made the confusion grow. Right below the tweet, Musk added another “meme”. This shows a couple in a long-distance relationship who stays in touch via videotelephony. While the woman tells the man how much she misses him, the man looks at a steeply falling course and says tearfully: “I miss you too”.
For Musk, It’s a Display of Power
The question that almost everyone in and outside of the crypto market asks: What is going on in the head of Tesla boss Musk? The former darling of the scene is now also making experts shrug their shoulders who can only speculate about the billionaire’s motives.
“For Elon Musk it’s a show of power,” says crypto analyst Timo Emden from Emden Research.
Of course, you could also speculate that he would like to push the course in order to be able to get back on board more cheaply, but what is obvious is another point: It’s a game for him, explains Emden.
What is fun for Musk costs a lot of money for many investors. Because when the giant Bitcoin falls, the other cryptocurrencies also stumble: The number two ether fell by 7 percent on Friday, Ripple by almost 9 percent, and Musk’s new favorite cryptocurrency Doge even slipped by almost 13 percent.
Does Elon Play With People’s Lives?
According to Emden, the multi-billionaire wants to provoke these actions and thus cuts himself into his own flesh. Because Tesla itself, according to Musk, still holds a very large amount of Bitcoin, which also loses value with every price slide.
Elon Musk can certainly cope with that, many smaller investors – some of whom only invested in cryptocurrencies because of Musk’s previous enthusiasm – it is different. “People lose everything and kill themselves. True story,” writes one user.
You are playing with people’s lives here. People like me push shopping carts at Walmart for minimum wages and have invested our savings, mourns another.
Related: Hacker Group Warns Elon Musk Over Manipulating Cryptocurrency
Price Slump Turns Out to be Weaker
Elon Musk still has a wide reach with his contributions to cryptocurrencies: 17,000 people shared the contribution on Friday, 143,000 users liked the broken heart. But Musk’s power is falling.
In the past few weeks, he had provoked a double-digit price slide and triggered a real panic among investors. The correction of 3,000 euros, on the other hand, seems almost moderate for long-established crypto investors.
The Market Gets Used to With Musk’s Whims
“Everyone knows by now that Musk is unpredictable and the market is adjusting to it,” explains Emden. With his behavior, Musk damages his own reputation more than the Bitcoin course. “He has meanwhile been decried, downright hated in some circles. Now he is squandering the last spark of trust that he still has”.
In the past few weeks, Musk had suddenly changed his mind about Bitcoin. If he was previously one of the loudest and biggest supporters of cryptocurrency, he suddenly criticized Bitcoin for its possible high energy consumption and made it clear that he was open to new and alternative currencies.