Citron Research has deleted all of its old tweets after spending too much time dealing with class-action attorneys and Internet trolls because of them, founder Andrew Left said on Tuesday.
(Bloomberg) — Citron Research has deleted all of its old tweets after spending too much time dealing with class-action attorneys and Internet trolls because of them, founder Andrew Left said on Tuesday.
Left, best-known for short positions on Tesla Inc., GameStop Corp. and China Evergrande Group, told Bloomberg by telephone that he was getting “so many” subpoenas for old class-action civil lawsuits off the old tweets that he decided to clean up his Twitter account.
“You can’t do anything good in this world, especially as a short seller you can’t,” Left said. “I get so many trolls from old things, not new things.”
Left said Citron will now publish tweets and delete them after a certain amount of time, adding that the decision was made on his own accord, without regulatory pressure.
Two years ago, Left announced that Citron would no longer publish short-selling research, ending its two-decade run as one of Wall Street’s best-known contrarians. The decision came after an army of day traders, congregating on Reddit, drove the research shop to a staggering loss on its bearish bet on GameStop Corp.
Since its start around 2001, Citron has published reports on dozens of companies, but its most prominent win was Valeant Pharmaceuticals Inc., which Left called the “pharmaceutical Enron.” The Justice Department, which subsequently indicted two executives, gave Left an implicit nod in a release, saying “investor websites” helped reveal suspect aspects of the business.
“I wrote a lot of things that turned out to be great, of course I’ve had bad calls, haven’t we all?” Left said.
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