Elon Musk is no longer the world’s richest person after Tesla Inc shares slid 8.6% on Monday, wiping US$15.2bil from his net worth.

Tesla’s biggest decline since September was fueled in part by Musk’s comments over the weekend that the prices of Bitcoin and smaller rival Ether “do seem high”. His message - via his favoured medium of Twitter - came two weeks after Tesla announced it added US$1.5bil in Bitcoin to its balance sheet.

Musk also tweeted earlier Monday that the company’s Model Y Standard Range SUV would still be available “off the menu”, backing up reports from electric vehicle news site Electrek that the model had been removed from its online configurator.

Musk drops to second on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index of the world’s 500 richest people with a net worth of US$183.4bil - down from a peak of US$210bil in January. Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos reclaimed the top spot even as his fortune fell by US$3.7bil to US$186.3bil Monday.

The two billionaires have been swapping places since January as the value of Tesla fluctuated. The stock surged as much as 25% to start 2021 before wiping off almost all of this year’s gain. Musk briefly overtook Bezos after his rocket company SpaceX raised US$850mil earlier this month, valuing the company at US$74bil , a 60% jump from August.

Bezos occupied the top spot on the ranking for three straight years prior to January, when Musk eclipsed the e-commerce titan thanks to a 794% rally in Tesla shares.

The market selloff on Monday hit many of the world’s ultra-rich. Zhong Shanshan, Asia’s wealthiest person, was the second-biggest decliner on the Bloomberg index, dropping by US$5.1bil as his bottled-water company fell 4.5%. Colin Huang of Pinduoduo Inc, Reliance Industries Ltd’s Mukesh Ambani and Tencent Holdings Ltd’s Pony Ma all lost more than US$2.5bil each.

 - Bloomberg