(Bloomberg) — Popular stock influencer Keith Gill, known as “Roaring Kitty,” has been sued for orchestrating a “pump and dump” scheme involving GameStop Corp. shares.
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Gill, who famously promoted GameStop during the meme trading wave of 2021, resurfaced in May and once again began posting about the game seller on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
In a proposed class action lawsuit filed Friday in Brooklyn, New York, federal court, GameStop shareholder Martin Radev alleged that Gill sought to manipulate the stock for his own gain.
Gill did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The lawsuit alleges that Gill acquired 120,000 call options on GameStop before he began publishing news about the company in May. The stock, which was trading at $17 before Gill started spreading news about the company, rose to $48.75 on May 14.
On June 2, he revealed that he owned 5 million GameStop shares and 120,000 call options set to expire on June 21. By June 13, Gill’s holdings had risen to more than 9 million GameStop shares with no call options remaining.
Radev said in the lawsuit that Gil “quietly sold and/or exercised (i.e., divested) all of his 120,000 GameStop call options for a substantial profit, apparently to increase his GameStop stock holdings by more than 4 million shares.”
GameStop shares have fallen since then, though they are still higher than they were before Jill’s posts. It was trading at around $23 early Monday afternoon.
Gill has become one of the public faces of the meme craze, amassing over a million followers via his “Roaring Kitty” YouTube channel and “DeepF***ingValue” page on Reddit.
GameStop shares rose more than 1,700% during one period in January 2021, and the stock’s massive rise appeared to pit retail investors against sophisticated hedge funds that were heavily shorting the struggling retail company.
Shares of Chewy Inc. rose about 10% Monday after Gill disclosed a 6.6% negative stake in the online pet food and products company.
The filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission came days after the investor posted a photo with a puppy without any comment on X. The post briefly sent the pet food retailer’s stock to a one-year high on Thursday.
The case is Radev v. Gill, 24-cv-04608, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York.
(Updates with complaint details.)
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