Shares of a South Korean book publishing company soared more than 10 percent on Wednesday, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted about the viral Baby Shark song.In reply to a South Park tweet on Tuesday, sharing the show’s ‘Meme Stars Battle it Out’ scene, Musk wrote: ‘Baby Shark crushes all! More views than humans.’ The tweet was posted in the early Tuesday morning hours in Asia, and by Wednesday, shares of Samsung Publishing, a major shareholder in the producer of the viral song and video, increased more than 10 percent, before closing 6.29 percent higher, according to CNBC .The publishing company has no affiliation with the Samsung Group, the multinational technology conglomerate, despite having the same name.It did not reach its year-to-date high in shares, at 59,000 Korean won in April, CNBC reported, but shares were sitting at 47,300 won by the end of Wednesday.Its shares had previously surged more than 76 percent in 2018 after after Baby Shark went vial, hitting the Top 40 charts in the U.K.The Baby Shark song had been around for over a decade at that point, according to CNBC, but the 2016 video cover by Samsung Publishing affiliate SmartStudy made it go viral worldwide.The video was created by SmartStudy’s Pinkfong division which ‘develops, creative, animated content to provide stimulating and fun learning experiences to children worldwide,’ according to the SmartStudy website.Pinkfong distributes its content on mobile apps and platforms like YouTube and Amazon Video.
The YouTube video for the Baby Shark song has been viewed more than 8.6 billion times since it was first posted in June 2016, and inspired a Nickelodeon show.This is not the first time Musk’s tweets have had an affect on the stock market, though.
Over the past month, shares of cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum plummeted after the billionaire announced Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin as payment, a reversal of his stance from two months prior.His tweets have also been linked to an increase in shares of Dogecoin in early May, when Musk tweeted that he was working with Dogecoin developers to improve its efficiency.
At around the same time, he also said his company, SpaceX would accept the meme-inspired cryptocurrency as a payment for trips to the moon and would send a 40-kilograb cube satellite named DOGE-1 to the moon.In 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered Tesla to vet all material public communications Musk made about the company, after accusing him of fraud for a tweet in which he claimed he had ‘funding secured’ to take Tesla private at $420 a share.The tweet sent the company’s stock soaring and forced a halt in trading.Musk reportedly gained $851 million in the wake of posting that tweet.
The SEC then sued Musk for fraud for ‘false and misleading tweets’ claiming he simply chose the $420 price because the number is a marijuana reference which would ‘amuse’ his girlfriend.Musk was fined $20 million and was forced to resign as chairman of Tesla after reaching a settlement with the Commission.But on two occasions, one in 2019 and another in 2020 the SEC contended that Tesla had violated the terms of the settlement, according to exchanges obtained by the Wall Street Journal .On July 29, 2019 Musk posted that Tesla was, ‘spooling up production line rapidly,’ on the solar roof, and, ‘Hoping to manufacture ~1000 solar roofs/week by end of this year.’ On May 1, 2020 he tweeted: ‘Tesla stock price is too high imo’ Initially, Tesla was required to review all of Musk’s tweets under the terms of the settlement in which which the company was also required to pay $20 million.In February 2019 the terms of the social media agreement were narrowed to require the company review only tweets involving certain topics.The topics were: production numbers, new products and Tesla’s financial status.By May 2020, however, the agency said the company was failing to abide by even those requirements with a letter to Tesla signed by senior SEC official Steven Buchholz saying, ‘Tesla has abdicated the duties required of it by the court’s order,’ according to the Journal.’In the face of Mr.
Musk’s repeated refusals to submit his covered written communications on Twitter to Tesla for pre-approval, we are very concerned by Tesla’s repeated determinations that there have been no policy violations because of purported carve-outs,’ the SEC replied.The Wall Street Journal obtained the exchanges through a Freedom of Information Act request.So far, neither Tesla nor the SEC have responded to the feud..
