Discord claims the ban was due to hate speech and had nothing to do with the extraordinary impact the retail investors who use the channel – and its counterpart on Reddit – were having on professional short sellers, who profit from falling share prices.
However, Musk was among the many people who came to the conclusion that the timing of the ban was far more than a coincidence. The world’s richest person gave his analysis of the situation in a concise tweet. “Even Discord has gone corpo…,” he said.
Musk had earlier given his support for the WallStreetBets movement, adding further momentum to GameStop’s soaring share price, which gained more than 1,700 percent since January.
Members of Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets page also took aim at Discord, labelling the platform’s treatment of the community as “pretty unethical”.
“Discord did us dirty and I am not impressed with them destroying our community instead of stepping in with the wrench we may have needed to fix things, especially after we got over 1,000 server boosts,” one of the moderators said.
The David and Goliath battle between the small investors and Wall Street hedge funds shows no signs of abating as the retail traders flood money into other companies, such as cinema chain AMC and BlackBerry, that have been targeted by short sellers.
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