Musk recommends "Signal": Tweet sends the wrong share on a roller coaster

Musk recommends "Signal"
Tweet sends the wrong share on a roller coaster

Elon Musk's word carries weight. And when the Tesla boss tweets something, it doesn't just affect his company. With the recommendation for the messenger service Signal, he drives investors crazy. They invest in a stock that sounds the same, even though Signal is not even listed on the stock exchange.

A curious mix-up pushed the shares of the biotech company Signal Advance up several thousand percent. Tesla boss Elon Musk tweeted his 42 million followers that the encrypting messenger service Signal should be used instead of Twitter and Facebook after these "classic" social networks got into the turmoil surrounding the storming of the Capitol.

The Signal messenger service is not listed on the stock exchange at all, which did not prevent investors from investing – just in the wrong stock, namely Signal Advance. Their titles exploded by 5643 percent, which drove the market value from 55 million to 3.16 billion dollars. A day later, the share went down again, plunging 60 percent.

There were numerous articles in the media that made it clear that the two companies have nothing to do with each other. Even the intelligence service had pointed out the mix-up. "We are not. We are a non-profit company, our only investment is in your privacy," wrote Signal on Twitter.

Confusion not excluded

The reason for the misleading Musk tweet is also a rule change at competitor Whatsapp. Musk does not agree with the move that the messenger service will share more data with Facebook in the future. Therefore he made the recommendation: "Use Signal".

There was a similar mix-up with Zoom. Numerous investors have invested in the stock with the stock ticker symbol ZOOM – assuming they will rely on the video conferencing service, which is booming during the pandemic. However, Zoom Video Communications was certified under the acronym ZM.

Deutsche Bank analyst Jim Reid joked that maybe you could set up a company called "Tolsa Botcoin" and see how rich you get. The name combination is an allusion to Bitcoin and Tesla, the most successful investor targets of the past year.

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