From Elon Musk To AOC, Everybody Has A Tweet About GameStop

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Shares of GameStop have surged as amateur investors foil hedge funds' efforts to short sell the stock. / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Editor's note: This story contains tweets with language some readers might find offensive.

It's the stock story gripping the country: an army of amateur investors in a Reddit chatroom are battling it out with professional Wall Street investors, sending shares of retailer GameStop sharply higher.

And it's leading a wide cast of celebrities and politicians to weigh in, on Twitter, of course.

One of the most discussed is arguably Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, who egged on the Redditors as GameStop shares surged. Those share gains delivered hefty losses to hedge funds shorting the stock.

Late-night host Stephen Colbert seemed to be keeping an eye on the hedge funds as well.

But things really started getting heated after online brokerages such as Robinhood imposed trading restrictions on GameStop shares.

That decision was hotly contested. Comedian Jon Stewart, who avoided Twitter for the entire Trump presidency, created an account on Thursday and weighed in.

The actions taken by Robinhood and others prompted outrage among lawmakers, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a progressive political star. And as it turns out, even Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, agreed.

But Cruz's nod wasn't enough to bring the two together. Ocasio-Cortez sharply responded to Cruz in a tweet, saying "you almost had me murdered."

She was referring to the Trump-supporting mob that breached the Capitol earlier this month. Cruz had been one of the lawmakers who sought to contest the election of Joe Biden.

Cruz has condemned the rioters while defending his stance on the election.

And then there are the accidental players. The Twitter account of the World Wide Robin Hood Society in the U.K., an organization dedicated to promoting the actual Robin Hood legend, gained about 40,000 followers, apparently after it was mistaken for the brokerage's account.

Claire Miller is an intern on the NPR Business Desk.

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