New York Mets chairman Steve Cohen deleted his Twitter account following backlash he received as a result of the Wall Street Bets saga. Cohen is the founder of Point72 Ventures, a $17.2 billion hedge fund. Steve Cohen and his fund have been under fire due to their involvement with Melvin Capital Management, which is the hedge fund that bet against GameStop.
When individual investors drove the price of GameStop stock way up, Melvin Capital lost tremendous value. Point72 is down 15% on the year, primarily as a result of their investment $2.75 billion investment in Melvin Capital. Cohen injected $500 million into Melvin Capital on Tuesday in an effort to bail out the fund. Billionaire Ken Griffith’s firm Citadel also received a bailout.
On Thursday, Steve Cohen got into a Twitter spat with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy. Following Robinhood’s implementation on restrictions on certain stocks, including GameStop and AMC, Portnoy blasted the company. “Prison time,” Portnoy stated. “Dems and Republicans haven’t agreed on one issue till this. That’s how blatant, illegal, unfathomable today’s events are.”
He then tagged Steve Cohen and Robinhood in the tweet while mentioning Point72 and Citadel.
“Hey Dave, What’s your beef with me. I’m just trying to make a living just like you. Happy to take this offline.” Cohen replied.
Portnoy then fired back, accusing Cohen of being involved with the “criminal events” of the previous day. “I don’t do offline. That’s where shady s*** happens. You bailed out Melvin cause he’s you’re boy along with Citadel. I think you had strong hand in todays criminal events to save hedge funds at the cost of ordinary people.” said Portnoy.
Not long after the exchange with Portnoy, Steve Cohen announced that he will be taking a “break” from Twitter via a team statement. Cohen — whose account had become popular with Mets fans — cited “threats to his family” as well as “misinformation” as contributing factors. “I’ve really enjoyed the back and forth with Mets fans on Twitter, which was unfortunately overtaken this week by misinformation unrelated to the Mets that led to our family getting personal threats,” the billionaire said.
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