Steve Cohen, the owner of the New York Mets and founder of Point72 Asset Management has left Twitter after receiving personal threats against himself and his family. Cohen released the following statement:
This past week there was major backlash against Cohen after Point72 Asset Management, alongside Citadel invested $2.75 billion into Melvin Capital Management.
The investment, or bailout, into Melvin Capital Management came after WallStreetBets users bid up GameStop to historical valuations.
GameStop went from $20 per share to over $400 per share in a few days, causing Melvin Capital Management to lose a significant amount of money due to an artificial “short squeeze”.
The bailout put Cohen and Citadel into the stream of oncoming bullets by WallStreetBet users, politicians and other mainstream celebrities. The battle of the suits vs the common man was amplified when Cohen got into a twitter debate with Dave Portnoy after Portnoy tweeted “PRISON TIME”.
“Hey Dave, What’s your beef with me? I’m just trying to make a living just like you. Happy to take this offline.”
Portnoy replied, “I don’t do offline. That is where shady shit happens.” Through multiple back and forth, eventually Portnoy and Cohen found some common ground:
What happens next in the battle of the suits vs the retail investor is anyone’s guess.
In my opinion, I believe Robinhood just found out there is major counterparty risk with their platform. The trading platform appears to be going through a liquidity issue and there could be a modern day “bank run”.
I expect politicians to step into the play and issue new regulations. The next few months are about to get extremely interesting.
