Correct. Because he's famous, and because he's profiting off of influencing people's behavior.
This is called a pump and dump scam, and is fraud. It hurts real people. It's why the regulatory framework exists, to protect naive investors from predatory ones, and ensure that misconduct doesn't overwhelm the valuable functions of the market.
An old adage used to describe the law in this context: "you can be a pig, but don't be a hog".
If one can't influence the price of stock due to "fame" or "influence" in and of itself, doesn't this put public.com in extraordinarily hot water [1] ? What about Unusual Whales, Quiver Quant?
In the past, he had call options that he could've sold for profit but instead he exercised them to get even more GME stock. It's literally the opposite of dumping.
The whales manipulate markets much more than anything Keith Gill has done.
It isn’t a pump and dump if he isn’t lying about it to pump it up (talking about your own actual position or the fundamentals isn’t “pumping”) and if he isn’t dumping it (“diamond hands” is sort of his thing)
For him to be involved in fraudulent pump-and-dump he'd have to be an insider or being paid by insiders to pump up the price. There's zero evidence of that.
That's... not at all true. There's no insider connection required for a pump-and-dump to be considered fraud. Maybe you're confusing it with "insider trading", which is a different thing.
This is called a pump and dump scam, and is fraud. It hurts real people. It's why the regulatory framework exists, to protect naive investors from predatory ones, and ensure that misconduct doesn't overwhelm the valuable functions of the market.
An old adage used to describe the law in this context: "you can be a pig, but don't be a hog".