Aaron Rodgers Showed Support for Reddit Users During the GameStop Trading War
NFL players sometimes like to use their fame to do good for people who don’t have the powerful platforms that they do. Aaron Rodgers is one of the most famous players in the league, and thus has one of the biggest stages with which to do such a thing.
With 4.4 million Twitter followers, when Rodgers tweets something, it gets seen by a lot of people, especially when you consider his followers retweeting and sharing it, as well as the media covering Rodgers’ thoughts. When Reddit users were recently in the news to try to cost hedge funds money on short stock sales, Rodgers was there to use his sizable following to support them.
The GameStop trading war
Like many brick-and-mortar retailers, GameStop is hurting financially, and it has been reflected for a while in the company’s stock price. In January, the company got caught up in a stock-trading battle when Reddit users noticed hedge funds were short-selling GameStop stock to try to benefit from the company’s difficulties.
The users banded together to buy large amounts of stock in the company to try to cause the hedge funds to lose money on their intended short sells. The “bedroom traders,” as the Guardian called them, bumped the company’s stock up from its recent low of $20 to a high of more than $483.
Many of the users used the Robinhood app to make the trades, and with all the activity Robinhood suspended trading. That action was seen by some as trying to help the hedge funds minimize their losses in the event.
Aaron Rodgers supports the “bedroom traders”
Enter Rodgers, who showed his support for the Reddit users, and others who also joined the cause, for what they were doing to the hedge funds.
Rodgers, like many, also called out Robinhood for trying to protect the billionaires who were shorting GameStop’s stock. He took to Twitter in the wake of the newsmaking event, firing off tweets and retweets to show that he was behind the folks who were on what he believed to be the good side.
Rodgers retweeted several tweets of Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, who went strongly after Robinhood and hedge funds. He then retweeted one of Portnoy’s tweets in which the infamous blogger essentially called out Robinhood for the double standard of allowing the hedge funds to do their speculation but shutting down the average traders who were trying to do the same thing.
Rodgers also quote-tweeted a clip of Portnoy sharing similar thoughts about the GameStop trading war on Fox News Channel and said he was “spitting facts.”
Aaron Rodgers’ recent charitable actions
Rodgers publicly showing support for the “little guy” in this fight goes along with his public persona of being a nice guy and taking part in charitable activities. That has been showcased recently with Rodgers donating money to small businesses that needed a financial boost with what they have been going through during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier this year, Rodgers donated $500,000 to the Barstool Fund, a fund Portnoy started with the intention of providing financial assistance to small businesses across America that have been hit hard by the pandemic.
That amount matched a donation made by Portnoy himself. More recently, the Enterprise-Record reports, Rodgers has announced a partnership with the North Valley Community Foundation in his native Chico, Calif., to help locally owned small businesses and restaurants in the area.
Rodgers has contributed $500,000 to the Aaron Rodgers Small-Business COVID-19 Fund, with the NVCF donating $100,000 from its COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund. An anonymous donor added an additional $100,000 to the fund to help area firms in need.
It’s clear Rodgers puts his money where his mouth is when it comes to helping out everyday Americans.
