Steven A. Cohen
Scott Eells | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Steve Cohen, founder of the Point72 hedging fund and owner of the New York Mets, disabled his Twitter account after his family received threats this week amid the GameStop trading frenzy.
“I really enjoyed back and forth with Mets fans on Twitter, who unfortunately were overwhelmed this week by unrelated misinformation with the Mets, which led our family to personal threats,” Cohen said Saturday.
“So I’m going to take a break for now. We have other ways to listen to your suggestions and commit to doing that,” he said.
Cohen, which manages nearly $ 19 billion in assets, lost nearly 15 percent this year after small investors boosted the shares of video game retailer GameStop, a source familiar with the issue told the New York Times .
The losses from Point72 are mainly due to the company’s investment in the Melvin Capital hedge fund, which bet against GameStop and had to receive almost $ 3 billion in emergency cash from two external investors, one of whom was Point72.
Cohen, who bought the Mets for about $ 2.5 billion in November, faced questions on Twitter about how Melvin’s losses would impact the baseball team.
On Thursday, Cohen also engaged in a round trip with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy on Twitter after Portnoy accused Cohen of engaging with controversial GameStop trade restrictions on apps like Robinhood.