Summoned to testify before a House committee Thursday about his hedge fund’s short trading of GameStop shares, Melvin Capital CEO Gabriel Plotkin said Reddit traders behind the meme stock frenzy targeted him with anti-semitic attacks.
Plotkin said Reddit posters encouraged others to drive up the price of GameStop stock in posts “laced with antisemitic slurs” directed at him and others, citing one example where someone wrote, “It’s very clear we need a second holocaust, the jews can’t keep getting away with this.”
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, who also testified at the hearing, said the company’s “anti-evil” team searched for the comment Plotkin mentioned, and found it “received no votes and was deleted within five minutes.”
Melvin Capital suffered massive losses when GameStop’s share price climbed to record heights, and has been a particular target of the Reddit forum r/WallStreetBets, who style themselves as crusaders against wealthy Wall Street firms.
Read the complete article at: Forbes
