World

'Shorting is Scam': Elon Musk Gives His View on GameStop Stock Exchange Drama

US stock exchange saw a dramatic day on Wednesday, with a group of amateur investors - who made choices using data they gleaned from other Redditors to short squeeze GameStop stocks - causing several institutional hedge fund investors to lose billions of dollars of value.
Sputnik

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter on Thursday to slam the recent GameStop stock exchange triumph, calling shorting "a scam".

"u can’t sell houses u don’t own u can’t sell cars u don’t own but u *can* sell stock u don’t own!?" Musk tweeted, adding, "this is bs – shorting is a scam legal only for vestigial reasons".

His reaction comes after a group of small investors from Reddit appeared to triumph over  billions of dollars over hedge funds after carrying out a so-called short squeeze of the GameStop videogame retail company.

On Wednesday, right in the middle of the stock exchange drama, Musk was among the first to react, tweeting "Gamestonk!!!" with a link to the WallStreetBets subreddit - providing additional impetus to the stakes.

​The financial incident prompted major feedback, with many deep pocket institutional investors and a supportive media calling the small independent retail investors "dangerous" and some wide-eyed analysts suggesting that some kind of "foreign power" was behind the squeeze.

Discuss