New York Mets owner Steve Cohen is taking a “break” from Twitter after saying his family received personal threats this week amid an ongoing trading conflict between day traders and hedge funds.
“I really enjoyed back and forth with Mets fans on Twitter, who unfortunately was overwhelmed this week by the unrelated misinformation with the Mets, which led to the personal threat of our family,” Cohen said in a statement on Saturday. after deactivating his account on Friday night. “So I’m going to take a break for now. We have other ways to listen to your suggestions and commit to doing that. I like our team, this community and our fans, who are the best in baseball. The bottom line is that this week’s events do not affect our resources in any way and drive us to put a championship team on the field. “
Cohen’s decision to give up Twitter seems to stem from the conflict between independent investors and hedge funds. Day traders, mobilized on Reddit, have invested all the money they can find in the stocks of the video game retailer GameStop and a few other beaten companies. Their purchase inflated the stock prices of those companies beyond anyone’s imagination and caused huge losses to hedge funds that placed bets that would lower their shares.
Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management became involved when it invested in Melvin Capital Management, a hedge fund that placed strong bets against GameStop and angered Reddit users.
GameStop launched almost 70% on Friday to $ 325. In the last three weeks, the shares have made an astonishing gain of 1,600%. The danger for day traders is that stocks can collapse at any time.
Before closing his Twitter account, Cohen – the richest owner in baseball, worth more than $ 14.5 billion – responded to the controversy on Twitter on Tuesday, “Rough crowd on Twitter tonight. Hey, stock jockeys, keep bringing it. ”
Among critics of Cohen, WFAN’s morning host and former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason said he would stop going to the Mets “until I find out exactly what’s going on here” about Cohen’s involvement in the GameStop situation.
The Mets owner has previously garnered nearly 200,000 Twitter followers for his irreversible interactions with fans, where he received suggestions on how to lead the team, reacted to the team’s biggest moves – such as the Francisco Lindor shortstop transaction – and teased a comeback of black T-shirts.
Joon Lee and The Associated Press contributed to this report.