In May last year, Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk posted a tweet about Tesla stock price being high and also him selling off all his personal possessions.This cost him USD 14 billion from his valuation in a few hours. With that tweet, Tesla share price dropped by more than 10 per cent, though the share rebounded within a week.
In another scenario, he ended in trouble with the US Securities and Exchange Commission when he said he wanted to take Tesla private at USD 420 per share and that he had secured the funding to do so. This was an episode in August 2018. It not only cost him and Tesla to pay up USD 40 million in penalty (USD 20 million each), but also the post of Tesla Chairman.
But since then what has Elon Musk learnt…
He may have learnt that he has the power to post a tweet and get investors to dump or buy shares. The only difference is now he does not tell you about the stock directly but in a way which investors have to be smart enough to pick up…
But looks like he realised his power to influence after the Signal episode, when he advised his followers to use Signal. Since then, he has been regularly tweeting about other listed companies.
After Musk tweeted that he was recommending use of messaging application Signal. Many investors mistook this message and started investing in stock of Signal Advance, a small component manufacturer. The stock within a few days witnessed a surge of 1,100 per cent. At one point, Signal Advance was worth more than USD 3 billion, due to a tweet. Now, the stock price of the company has dropped below USD 3 per piece.
Yet another cryptic tweet was about an e-commerce company that makes hand-made products. By a simple line, ‘I kinda love Etsy’, posted by Musk, the stock of the e-commerce company surged. This stock is still trading high since that callout from Musk. At present, the stock is priced at USD 231.12 per cent
Within a few hours, the billionaire posted a tweet on January 27 which said Gamestonk!, with a link to the Reddit board. Post this, the shares of GameStop were up more than 60 per cent in after hours trading.
Early that day, the stock price rose mainly because of a venture capitalist and CEO of Social Capital, Chamath Palihapitiya who bet that the stock would go upwards. And rest was done by Elon Musk. Since then, the stock of the American video game company surged over 1,000 per cent. Now, the stock has dropped from USD 325 per share to USD 63.77 per share.
On January 29, in a reply to a tweet, Musk wrote about Shopify. What happened since is not a mystery.
The share price of Shopify’s stock rose as much as 3.5 per cent in late trading. The only positive for the stock is that it continues to trade higher at USD 1,287.75 per share. On January 29, during the opening it was at USD 1,098.59 per share.
On the same day, he posted about video-game maker CD Projekt SA which led to a surge in its share price. He tweeted that a new model of Tesla’s Model S Plaid car would allow passengers to play Cyberpunk 2077 computer games.
On February 4, he put up yet another cryptic tweet, Sandstorm is a masterpiece. After this, the stock of the Canada-based gold miner surged as much as 55 per cent in pre-market trading.
This not only helped the company witness a rise in their valuation, but helped Finnish DJ Darude’s song Sandstorm garner some views.
After driving the stock market, he has now turned his attention to cryptocurrencies. Moving away from the usual, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and others. He has picked up Dogecoin.
Cryptocurrency Dogecoin surged more than 50 per cent on Thursday after billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted his support for it. Dogecoin has surged 659 per cent this year, even before a tweet from Musk.
