6 Times Elon Musk Tweets Have Shaken The Markets

What hasn't been said about the 'real-life Tony Stark that we don't already know? The South African-born American billionaire entrepreneur is a polarising figure; either you love or hate him.

What we cannot deny is his influence in business and social media, particularly, of course, Twitter, a company he now owns.

It all began in June 2009 when Musk (@ElonMusk) joined the social media giant. Fast forward to now, and he is now the second-most followed person on the platform, with just over 130 million followers.

His frequency of tweets has grown yearly, totalling over 19 000 since the beginning. Stats reveal Musk tweets at all hours and days of the week. He responds to just about anyone, from a user with less than 500 followers to one with over 2000.

The tone of his tweets is generally casual and light-hearted, but he's known for being insulting, too. One cool thing is that you can easily tell Musk creates his own tweets, which is impressive, considering how busy he is. The point is this: his Twitter page is pretty entertaining.

Yet, the most fascinating aspect about this entire thing is how his tweets have influenced the financial markets, particularly stocks and crypto. Just the mere mention of 'Bitcoin' on his bio in January 2021 increased the price of BTC by 13.9% in 30 minutes.

Twitter has always been a massive social media network where words from high-profile people can reverberate globally.

2018 was the year that kick-started a trend where one simple tweet from Musk directly affected the price of a stock or crypto. While some deem this as manipulation, it's telling how investors can invest based on emotion from words alone.

Here, we'll look at the seven best Elon Musk tweets from 2018 that impacted the price of various financial assets from Bitcoin to Tesla.

1. Taking Tesla private (Aug 2018)

This was the first tweet which got Musk in serious and expensive (maybe not?) legal trouble. Musk wrote on the 07th of August 2018 about taking Tesla private once it was worth $420 a stock. Mind you, the price at the time was around $25.

So, $420 a share was a stretch too far. Nevertheless, this tad bit of news saw Tesla rise by just over 6%. However, once the statement was found to be false, the price dropped to $16.50 over the following two months.

Sadly, the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) stepped in with fraud charges that required Elon and Tesla to pay $20 million each. Furthermore, the billionaire was temporarily removed as chairman.

Yet, this was just the beginning of the tomfoolery and not the last time Musk would get sued.

2. Back-tracking on how many cars Tesla would produce (Feb 2019)

Tesla has had a reputation for failing to meet production targets, which has affected its stock price. The CEO tweeted on 20 February 2019 that the car manufacturer will produce about 500 000 vehicles in that year.

Yet, a few hours later, he presented some simple math, correcting himself that he meant around 400 000 instead. The stock fell by almost 4% in response.

3. Dogecoin (April 2019 till present)

Musk isn't shy about his affinity for novel inventions. While Dogecoin has been around since December 2013, it was a lesser-known meme coin until 2020. Musk started tweeting about it in April 2019: "Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It's pretty cool."

This was in response to a Twitter poll from Dogecoin on who should become their CEO (with Musk receiving the majority of the votes). He has since become arguably the most impactful advocate for the project.

Here are some of the moving tweets from Musk that resulted in a noticeable rise (in one case, above 50%) in DOGE's price over the years:

• 17 July 2020: "It's inevitable."
• 20 December 2020: "One word: Doge."
• 04 February 2021: "Dogecoin is the people's crypto."
• 01 April 2021: "SpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon."
• 11 May 2021: "Do you want Tesla to accept Doge?"

CoinDesk made a brilliant chart aligning the actual price surges of the coin for each tweet.

4. Kinda loving Etsy (Jan 2021)

Tesla isn't the only stock Musk has influenced over the years. He surprised many when he endorsed an unlikely company, Etsy, on 26 January 2021 with a simple tweet: "I kinda love Etsy."

He then said he purchased a wool Marvin the Martian helmet for his dog. The initial tweet came in at 06h25 ET, during pre-market trading hours. Yet, from this time till before the afternoon, Etsy's stock was 8% more valuable but dropped again on the same day.

5. Yo-yo relationship with Bitcoin (March 2021 till present)

The earliest known tweet about Bitcoin from the Tesla head honcho was from 27 November 2019. Here, he denied being the mysterious founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, and said, "Not true. A friend sent me part of a BTC a few years, but I don't know where it is."

Over the years, Musk published comments several times about BTC. Yet, 2021 was the year his words impacted the world's first-ever crypto.

It began with the "You can buy a Tesla with Bitcoin." tweet on 24 March 2021. Then, Musk changed his stance in May of that year due to environmental concerns. In both cases, his tweets shifted the value of BTC.

Again, CoinDesk created a brilliant chart highlighting the direct price relationships between Bitcoin against Musk's tweets.

6. Offer to buy Twitter (April 2022)

Musk first made his desire to acquire Twitter known to the world on 14 April 2022 with an "I made an offer." tweet. It was soon revealed that Elon had been buying stock in Twitter since the start of the year, bringing his total share to 9.1%. This made him the largest shareholder of the company.

After the announcement, the stock price rose by 27% in one day, the largest jump it had experienced since 2013. After much bickering back and forth, the deal was finally concluded on 27 October 2022.

And here we are today, where the man can express himself more freely without restrictions. The tweet below perfectly sums up why Musk loves tweeting so much: