San Francisco, April 14 After Tesla fans propagated fake news of the acquisition of lithium mining firm Lithium Corporation on Twitter, the firm's stock went up over 250 per cent.
Over the last few years, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has used his Twitter account to promote so many accounts that have become influential in the Tesla community, reports the auto-tech website Electrek.
Several of these accounts have been known to spread misinformation in the past and now it is becoming dangerous to a certain degree with a new example today, the report said.
A newswire posted what they claim was a confirmation that Tesla is acquiring Lithium Corporation, a junior mining firm based in Nevada.
"Tesla confirmed that it acquired Nevada-based lithium mining company $LTUM Lithium Corporation," they wrote in the release.
The release was very light on actual information and even referenced Musk's recent comments about Tesla possibly going into the lithium mining business, but no quote about the acquisition from either company.
The report said it found the release inaccurate as it stated that Tesla has "confirmed" the acquisition and the automaker has very few official channels to confirm any information these days, namely SEC filings, its blog, its official Twitter account, and Musk's account.
A quick check of those channels showed that the automaker did not confirm the news nor did Lithium Corporation, the other party at play here.
And the fake news was quickly shared as official by Sawyer Merrit, who operates a Twitter account popular amongst Tesla fans on the social platform and often promoted directly by Musk.
Within 30 minutes, the post was retweeted over 400 times, mainly by Merrit's following of Tesla fans, before being taken down.
It helped the news go viral and sent Lithium Corporation's stock up more than 250 per cent.
Normally, only 200,000 shares of Lithium Corporation, which normally trades at around $0.30, change hands every day, but over 20 million shares moved after the fake news started to spread.
Lithium Corporation issued an official statement confirming that the news is fake and that the company has no relation with Tesla.
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