Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Elon Musk complains Discord chat service has gone ‘Corpo’ after it took down WallStreetBets

The Reddit group is behind the stunning surge in GameStop stock price

Graeme Massie
Los Angeles
Thursday 28 January 2021 14:54 EST
Comments
Trevor Noah impersonates Margot Robbie in GameStop explainer

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Elon Musk accused Discord of going “Corpo” after it took down the Reddit group behind the spike in GameStop’s share price.

The billionaire Tesla founder took to Twitter to slam the messaging service with the derogatory term for “going corporate” after the r/WallStreetBets had its server temporarily banned.

“Even Discord has gone corpo,” tweeted the South African-born entrepreneur.

The WallStreetBets group of internet investors rallied behind struggling GameStop and caused a huge surge in its stock price over the past two weeks.

This in turn badly hit hedge funds and Wall Street investors who had taken huge short positions against the company and were banking on its failure.

"To be clear, we did not ban this server due to financial fraud related to GameStop or other stocks,” Discord said in a statement.

“Discord welcomes a broad variety of personal finance discussions, from investment clubs and day traders to college students and professional financial advisors.

“We are monitoring this situation and in the event there are allegations of illegal activities, we will cooperate with authorities as appropriate."

Investment platform Robinhood, which has been used by the group, restricted trading in GameStop shares on Thursday.

Amateur users were prevented from taking new positions and were only allowed to sell their stock.

This in turn led to a pair of lawsuits filed by disgruntled customers in New York and Chicago.

Robinhood also prevented the purchase of stock in AMC, Blackberry, Express, Bed Bath & Beyond, Koss, Naked Brand Group and Nokia, which have all been targeted by the group.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attacked Robinhood for the decision on Twitter.

“This is unacceptable,” she wrote.

“We now need to know more about @RobinhoodApp's decision to block retail investors from purchasing stock while hedge funds are freely able to trade the stock as they see fit.”

Mr Musk then again took to Twitter to agree with the New York lawmaker.

“Absolutely,” he replied to Ms Ocasio-Cortez’s own tweet.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in