Elon Musk.
Britta Pedersen-Pool/Getty Images
- Elon Musk was dubbed Time’s Person of the Year in part because of his impact on markets through Twitter.
- The Tesla chief has caused big moves, especially for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and dogecoin.
- A Twitter poll from February 5 that read, “Dogecoin to the Moooonn,” sent the crypto soaring 35%.
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Elon Musk was dubbed the Person of the Year by Time magazine, in part because of his impact on financial markets.
That has come largely through one medium: Twitter.
The Tesla chief has garnered 67 million followers as well as a reputation for moving markets and making headlines with his tweets, which are often merely jokes.
In November alone, numerous tweets, such as spats with US senators and a supposed one-star review of JPMorgan, caught the public eye.
Here’s a roundup of a dozen of his most influential market tweets — one for each month of the year.
January
On January 26, near the height of GameStop mania in which shares of the ailing retailer soared past $300, Musk shared a simple tweet: “Gamestonk!!” He linked to Wall Street Bets, the widely followed subreddit that rallied behind GameStop.
February
He sent a bevy of tweets related to dogecoin that led to rallies in the meme token, whose mascot is a Japanese shiba inu dog. A Twitter poll from February 5 that read, “Dogecoin to the Moooonn,” sent the cryptocurrency soaring 35%.
March
In March, Musk briefly announced plans to sell a non-fungible token, or NFT, and then quickly backed off. More notably though, he said people could begin buying Teslas with bitcoin. The price of bitcoin rose after the tweet.
April
He referred to himself as the “dogefather” in an April 28 tweet that preceded his appearance as the host of “Saturday Night Live.” That tweet, alongside endorsements from billionaire investor Mark Cuban, sent dogecoin as much as 30% higher. Musk’s appearance on SNL, though, led to a dogecoin dip.
May
Just two months after announcing Tesla would accept bitcoin, Musk reneged on the plan. In a series of tweets, he explained his concerns over the energy usage and impact on the environment related to processing transactions and mining bitcoin. The U-turn triggered a slump in Tesla stock and the digital asset market.
June
Musk caused the price of bitcoin to jump in June after the he tweeted the EV maker would begin accepting bitcoin once “there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend.”
July
His sway over the markets began waning in July and he stayed away from market-moving tweets for the most part. He did, however, sneak in a Matrix meme that read “dogecoin is money.”
August
After Cuban told CNBC that dogecoin is the best cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange, Musk chimed in on Twitter to say, “I’ve been saying this for a while.”
September
But in September, Musk said dogecoin fees would have to drop for it to become a more feasible payment option. The tweet came after AMC CEO Adam Aron toyed with the idea of accepting dogecoin as payment.
October
Shiba inu, the self-proclaimed “dogecoin killer,” began an epic surge in October after Musk tweeted a photo of his new Japanese pup named “Floki.” He later revealed he didn’t have any crypto holdings in shiba inu — just in bitcoin, ether, and dogecoin.
November
Tesla stock tumbled in November after Musk posted a Twitter poll asking if he should sell 10% of his stake because “much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance.” Of the 3.5 million people who voted, nearly 60% voted yes.
December
In December, he continued to offload Tesla shares to reach his 10% goal and said he would pay $11 billion in taxes. In Time’s Person of the Year article, he said he doesn’t actually have an effect on markets, though. “Markets move themselves all the time, based on nothing as far as I can tell,” he said.
Read the original article on Business Insider 
