Elon Musk certainly isn’t making friends within the poker community. The multibillionaire product architect of Tesla Inc. caused Bitcoin, a form of cryptocurrency popular among investment-savvy poker players, to plummet with just a couple of tweets.
With a net worth of $151 billion, according to Forbes, Musk is the second-wealthiest person in the world. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos tops the charts at $177 billion.
Not only is Musk extremely wealthy, he’s one of the most followed Twitter users with more than 55 million followers. So, when he says anything investment-related, even if it’s a seemingly insignificant comment, people take notice and react accordingly. Over the past week, he’s proved that to be true. After last week saying Tesla would no longer accept the cryptocurrency until Bitcoin shifts to a more sustainable, environmental-friendly model, the crypto’s value dropped. It took another dip over the past day thanks in large part to a one-word tweet by Elon Musk.
Indeed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2021
One word, “Indeed,” sent Bitcoin’s price into a fast tailspin. On May 11, a bitcoin’s value hovered around $57,000. Six days later, due to Musk’s comments, it’s down to around $44,000. That’s nearly a 23% decline, all because of a few tweets.
On Monday morning, Musk attempted to calm some of the anger directed his way when he said in a tweet that Tesla “has not sold any Bitcoin.”
Poker community trashes Musk
Doug Polk, Joey Ingram, and Haralabos Voulgaris are among the Bitcoin investors who took shots at Musk over his recent comments. Even though Musk clarified that Tesla hadn’t sold off any Bitcoin, Ingram expressed distaste for the billionaire who recently hosted Saturday Night Live.
https://twitter.com/Joeingram1/status/1394172590751510529?s=20
“Please leave bitcoin and go away to your own planet with Hellmuth and the other home game buddies,” the YouTube poker podcaster tweeted at Elon Musk.
Ingram’s pal, Polk, has been highly critical of the Boring Company founder following last week’s cryptocurrency comments. Polk claims Musk is clueless when it comes to cryptocurrency, and is surprised by that.
Various elon takes
– DOGE is decentralized
– DOGE has a potentially promising dev team
– Doesnt understand the Trilemma problemIf he had some phenomenal takes on scaling and decentralization, people would love that. But what he has is "make blocks 10x bigger"
— Doug Polk (@DougPolkVids) May 17, 2021
Polk has long been a proponent of Bitcoin, buying into the cryptocurrency long before it came close to sniffing $60,000, which it did earlier this month and in April. He previously ran a crypto YouTube channel, but quit making videos more than a year ago.
Voulgaris is another poker player who invests heavily in cryptocurrency. He took a sarcastic approach to the Tesla billionaire.
https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/1394043805574123524?s=20
Poker pro Mike McDonald also piled on, implying that Musk is a victim of his own success and hype. “Imagine being the richest man on earth and still being held in captivity by shareholders. If he sells his company will continue to be unprofitable and he’ll lose paper wealth. If he holds he will continue this hypocritical charade.”
On a side note, Tesla’s stock price has plummeted over the past month. On April 19, TSLA closed at just over $714 and is now hovering around $575.
