'We don't answer to hedge funds' -Robinhood CEO
Wall Street hedge fund managers, the chief executives of Robinhood and Reddit, and a YouTube streamer known as Roaring Kitty faced a grilling on Thursday (February 18) by U.S. lawmakers about the Reddit rally in shares of GameStop Corp.
Some of Wall Street's most powerful players, including billionaire Republican mega-donor and Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, made rare public statements about their businesses during the congressional hearing on how Reddit users trading on retail platforms banded together to squeeze hedge funds that had bet against shares of the video game retailer and other companies.
Griffin appeared virtually before the Democratic-led House finance panel alongside Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, Melvin Capital CEO Gabriel Plotkin, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and Keith Gill, a Reddit user and YouTube streamer known as Roaring Kitty who promoted his investment in GameStop.
The five men have been at the center of the saga, which roiled Wall Street in January prompting probes by several federal and state agencies.
With Wall Street critic Representative Maxine Waters at the helm and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives on the 54-member panel, the hearing promises to be fiery, with tough questions for Tenev, Griffin and Plotkin in particular.
