Elon Musk continued to whipsaw the price of Bitcoin, sending it to the lowest since February after implying in a Twitter exchange Sunday that Tesla Inc. may sell or has sold its cryptocurrency holdings.
Bitcoin slid below $45,000 for the first time in almost three months after the billionaire owner of the electric-car maker seemed to agree with a Twitter post that said Tesla should divest what at one point was a $1.5 billion stake in the largest cryptocurrency. It traded at $45,270 as of 5:51 p.m. in New York, down about $4,000 from where it ended Friday.
The online commentary was the latest from the mercurial billionaire in a week of public statements that have roiled digital tokens. He lopped nearly $10,000 off the price of Bitcoin in hours after saying Tesla wouldn’t take it for cars. A few days earlier, he hosted "Saturday Night Live” and joked that Dogecoin, a token he had previously promoted, was a "hustle,” denting its price. A few days later he tweeted he was working with Doge developers to improve its transaction efficiency.