- GameStop co-founder Gary Kusin told CNBC he had been monitoring the frenzy of the company’s stock.
- Kusin’s son Ben said he has long been following the Reddit forum that is credited with fueling the GameStop rally.
- The oldest Kusin told CNBC that it was “a small honor” for investors to target GameStop.
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A GameStop co-founder and his family appear to be closely following the company’s stock price explosion.
Ben Kusin, whose father, Gary, co-founder of GameStop, was an active member of the Reddit forum, cheering and feeding the company’s spectacular rally. Younger Kusin told CNBC’s Ari Levy that his father and brother were watching the drama unfold as GameStop’s stock skyrocketed to 2,000% in January.
“It was the collision of worlds when it happened,” he said.
Encouraged by members of the popular Reddit r / wallstreetbets forum, many people invested in GameStop in part to burn larger investors who were betting against the shares, like Citron Research short seller Andrew Left. The demonstration, which was described as a populist movement, resulted in billions in losses for GameStop short sellers.
Gary Kusin, who founded what became GameStop in the 1980s, told CNBC that it was “a small honor” for investors to target the company for its short-term attempt.
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“I am much more a spectator than a participant,” he added. “I just got some popcorn.”
The older Kusin joins other high-profile spectators of the GameStop rally. Billionaires Elon Musk and Chamath Palihapitiya applauded retail investors who are credited with encouraging the short squeeze. Progressive lawmakers called for stronger regulation of the stock market to avoid market manipulation.
The rally represented a comeback for GameStop, the largest game retailer in the United States, after years of slow sales. The company, threatened as games are increasingly downloaded rather than purchased in stores, closed 462 stores in 2020.
Still, a pandemic-driven increase in demand for video games, a major investment by Chewy co-founder Ryan Cohen, and the launch of the PlayStation 5 all sparked a revival for the video game store before the dramatic frenzy.
Some at GameStop had a hard time dealing with the sudden increase. GameStop employees told Reed Alexander of Insider that they were answering questions about investments and bizarre customer interactions. Employees said they had not received guidance from GameStop’s corporate leadership on how to handle the question flow.