SEC charges social media influencers in $100M stock fraud

By MATT OTT
AP Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. government regulators charged eight social media influencers in a $100 million fraud scheme in which they’re accused of promoting exchange-traded stocks, then selling their shares when prices rose. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday that since at least early 2020, seven of the influencers promoted themselves as successful traders on Twitter and in Discord chat rooms and encouraged hundreds of thousands of their followers to buy certain stocks. When prices or volumes of the promoted stocks would rise, the influencers regularly sold their shares without ever having disclosed their plan to sell.