A deleted tweet from one of President Donald Trump's Cabinet members just cost traders $84 million in minutes, according to a new report.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright's accidental post about Navy tanker escorts sent oil markets into a frenzy Tuesday before disappearing into the digital void, leaving Wall Street reeling from what one expert called "an unforgivable error," the Wall Street Journal reported.
The post claimed the U.S. Navy was escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Crude futures nosedived.
"Benchmark U.S. crude futures plunged by as much as 19% at one point. During a roughly 10-minute span when Wright’s post appeared, an exchange-traded fund linked to oil futures saw $84 million of its market capitalization evaporate," the report said.
The post vanished and Department of Energy officials later admitted, "A video clip was deleted from Secretary Wright’s official X account after it was determined to be incorrectly captioned by Department of Energy staff.
An agency spokesperson said the administration was reviewing other options to resume tanker traffic, “including the potential for our Navy to escort tankers.”
Benchmark crude settled down 12% at $83.45 a barrel Tuesday, marking the steepest one-day decline in four years. The intraday plunge to $76.73 represented a staggering 36% drop from Sunday's peak of $119.48 — the biggest two-day nosedive since the pandemic crash of April 2020.
Oil markets have become a rollercoaster of chaos, with traders whipsawed by Iranian conflict uncertainty and confusing signals from the Trump administration.
"Where's the line between fantasy and reality? It's hard to say," commodity specialist Robert Yawger observed.
Airlines tanked as well, with Delta, American, and United each dropping over 2%. Saudi Aramco Chief Executive Amin Nasser warned of “catastrophic consequences for oil markets” if energy disruptions continued.
“While we have faced disruptions in the past,” he said, “this one by far is the biggest crisis the region’s oil and gas industry has faced.”