Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk presents in Hawthorne, California, on October 9, 2014, a new all-wheel drive version of the Model S vehicle.
Lucy Nicholson | Reuters
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, seemed to be gathering behind the epic wave of GameStop, posting a link to the Reddit board, which largely advertised.
GameStop shares rose more than 60% in trading after hours, following Musk’s tweet, which linked to the “wallstreetbets” Reddit page that has more than 2 million subscribers. Tesla CEO tweeted “Gamestonk !!”
Shares rose earlier in the day after Chamath Palihapitiya of Social Capital said in a tweet that he was buying GameStop call options, betting that shares would rise. Shares closed up 92.7% on Tuesday.
Musk’s calls to some companies have previously influenced stock prices. Earlier on Tuesday he tweeted about a hand-woven wool hat he bought for his dog on Etsy. This caused the company’s shares to rise to 8% in premarket trading, although it eventually closed at 2.1%.
The CEO has faced problems with the SEC for tweeting about Tesla shares. In August 2018, he said he wanted to deprive Tesla of $ 420 per share and that he had secured funding to do so. Musk and Tesla had to pay the SEC a $ 20 million fine to settle the lawsuit, and Musk has since agreed to submit his public statements about Tesla’s finances and other issues to his legal counsel. Last year he posted an infamous tweet that Tesla shares were “too high” and sent even higher shares a week later.
– Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
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