New York Mets owner Steve Cohen deactivated his Twitter account on Friday night after saying his family received personal threats amid David and Goliath’s continuing standoff between an army of independent retail investors and Wall Street about the struggling video game retailer GameStop.
“I really enjoyed coming and going with Mets fans on Twitter, which unfortunately was overcome this week by incorrect information unrelated to Mets that led our family to receive personal threats,” said Cohen in a statement on Saturday. “So, I’m going to take a break for now. We have other ways to listen to your suggestions and remain committed to doing so.
“I love our team, this community and our fans, who are the best in baseball. The main point is that this week’s events in no way affect our resources and motivation to put a champion team on the field. “
Day traders, mobilized on a Reddit forum, poured all the money they found into the stock of a struggling video game retailer called GameStop and a few other defeated companies. Their purchase inflated the stock prices of these companies beyond anyone’s imagination – and, not coincidentally, it inflicted huge losses on the hedge funds of the super-rich, who bet on the fall of the shares.
Their strategy, of course, is fraught with risks. The prices of the shares they bought now are multiples above any level justified by revenues, profits or future prospects. The danger is that, at any moment, stocks may collapse.
Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management became involved by investing in Melvin Capital Management, a hedge fund that had placed many bets against GameStop and attracted the ire of day traders. Melvin is commanded by Cohen’s former protégé, Gabe Plotkin.
GameStop’s stock soared from less than $ 20 earlier this month, closing at around $ 325 on Friday. In the past three weeks, they have delivered an astonishing 1,600% gain.
Cohen, who bought Mets for a record $ 2.42 billion in October, has accumulated almost 200,000 followers on Twitter for his surprisingly irreverent interactions with fans, in which he accepted suggestions on how to manage the team and received strange suggestions from the trade.
On Tuesday, the 64-year-old billionaire responded to the controversy by tweeting, “Rough crowd in Twitter today. Hey, bag jockeys, keep bringing. “
Then, on Thursday, Cohen came and went with Dave Portnoy after the founder of Barstool Sports criticized the owner of Mets in the wake of restrictions that were placed on trading apps, like Robinhood, which were hurting day traders behind the GameStop stock price balloon, forbidding them from buying the shares while allowing sales orders.
“I had nothing to do with what happened today … Chile [sic] out, ”Cohen replied in a tweet to Portnoy.
After Portnoy’s supporters started criticizing Cohen, the Mets owner deactivated his account.