SpaceX Founder and Chief Engineer Elon Musk speaks during the Satellite 2020 Conference in Washington, DC, the United States on March 9, 2020.
Yasin Öztürk | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
The shares of Samsung Publishing, a major shareholder in the producer of Baby Shark, rose on Wednesday after a tweet from Tesla CEO Elon Musk about the viral nursery rhyme.
Samsung Publishing’s shares in South Korea climbed more than 10% intermittently during regular trading on Wednesday before shedding some gains and closing 6.29% higher. The company has no affiliation with the South Korean conglomerate Samsung Group, despite sharing the Samsung name.
Wednesday’s gains were due to a Tuesday morning tweet from Musk in Asia that said, “Baby Shark is crushing everyone! More views than people. “
According to data from Refinitiv Eikon, the stock remains down from its year-to-date high of 59,000 Korean won in April, despite having risen more than 97% since the start of the year. Samsung Publishing’s stock was trading at 47,300 Korean won at the close of trading on Wednesday.
The stock surge was another example of Musk’s apparently oversized influence.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Dogecoin previously saw strong price movements, according to comments from the tech billionaire. His tweets have also previously been linked to movements on the stock market in so-called meme stocks like GameStop.
The shares of Samsung Publishing rose more than 76% in 2018 after the viral song “Baby Shark” cracked the Top 40 charts in the UK by Samsung Publishing subsidiary SmartStudy sparked interest worldwide.
The video was created by its Pinkfong division, which, according to SmartStudy, “creates creative, animated content to bring stimulating and fun learning experiences to children around the world.” Pinkfong sells its content through mobile apps and platforms such as YouTube and Amazon Video.
