Elon Musk and Reddit Help GameStop Share Price Hit Record High

GameStop has had a wild week, with the retailer's stock fluctuating incredible amounts – ending up at almost $120 per share.

Considering the company has seemed at risk ever since digital purchases became more popular, that's surprised many, but the story is actually a lot weirder than you'd think.

Elon Musk and Reddit Help GameStop Share Price Hit Record High

In 2020, Wired reported that GameStop investors had been "shorting" stock.

This process involves borrowing shares, selling them, and then buying back the same amount of shares borrowed at a lower price. Of course, this falls on its face if the stock prices rise unexpectedly.

After Ryan Cohen, co-founder of Chewy, bought a stake in the company and started pushing for a more forward-thinking GameStop, stock prices began to creep up again.

Buoyed by an agreement with Microsoft to serve as a distributor for Xbox All Access, things started to pick up, especially after a positive holiday sales period.

This prompted Citron Research to tweet this bullish assessment of the stock forecast.

Tomorrow am at 11:30 EST Citron will livestream the 5 reasons GameStop $GME buyers at these levels are the suckers at this poker game. Stock back to $20 fast. We understand short interest better than you and will explain. Thank you to viewers for pos feedback on last live tweet

— Citron Research (@CitronResearch)

January 19, 2021

In an effort to troll Citron, the WallStreetBets subreddit of daytraders decided to have some fun (according to PCGamer).

These investors, as well as those looking to recoup their "shorted" stocks, were pushing the price of GameStop up, and the trolling didn't stop there: Citron's Andrew Left started getting pizzas delivered to his house and more.

Still, after Elon Musk tweeted a link to the WallStreetBets subreddit and Virgin Galactic Chairman Chamath Palihapitiya bought stocks in the company, those short-sellers are now looking to recoup $5 million between them with the share price reaching a new high of $148.