Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, is on the construction site of the Tesla Gigafactory. In Grünheide, near Berlin, on September 3, 2020.
Patrick Pleul | alliance image | Getty Images
When Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Thursday urged his Twitter followers to “use Signal,” he was referring to the encrypted messaging app. It seems like some people have gone the wrong way.
Shares of a dark, unrelated company called Signal Advance, which is listed for sale, rose 527% on Thursday and 91% on Friday, from 60 cents to $ 7.19.
The signal Musk was referring to is operated by a non-profit organization and serves as an alternative to text messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Apple’s messaging service. That Signal came to Twitter on Friday to clarify that it has nothing to do with Signal Advance.
“It’s understandable that people want to invest in Signal’s record growth, but it’s not us,” Signal wrote. “We are an independent 501c3 and our only investment is your privacy.”
It’s a known issue on Wall Street.
In April 2019, the day Zoom Video Communications celebrated its long-awaited market debut under the ZM symbol, a Chinese company called Zoom Technologies jumped more than 80% in two hours of trading. The shares gave up most of those gains that day, closing at 10%.
Six years earlier, as investors waited for Twitter to go public, shares of Tweeter Home Entertainment Group rose more than 1,000%.
Signal Advance was founded in Texas under the name Biodyne in 1992 and provided services to medical and legal workers. The company changed its focus to the use of technology in healthcare and changed its name to Signal Advance. In 2014, low-priced shares hit the market.
Signal Advance is so small that it does not report funding to the SEC. As of March 2019, he had no full-time employee other than CEO Chris Hymel, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Due to the involuntary swarm of investor interest, the company now has a market capitalization of $ 660 million, up from $ 55 million two days ago. Prior to Thursday, shares were trading below $ 1 since 2015.
The Signal Messaging app, backed by the Signal Technology Foundation, “works exclusively with donations,” according to a New York article published in October.
The group had other concerns after Musk tweeted to his more than 41 million followers. Signal said Thursday there were technical issues with the checks because “there are a lot of new people trying to join.”
Both technical snafu and the wild trade of an unrelated stock underscore Musk’s growing influence. Thursday became the richest person in the world thanks to a nearly 800% increase in Tesla’s market capitalization over the past year. On Friday, Tesla became the fifth most valuable public company in the United States, surpassing Facebook.
I’LL SEE: Former Ford CEO Mark Fields is what Tesla should focus on in 2021