Shares of Samsung Publishing Co., the second-largest shareholder in the producer of “Baby Shark,” viral YouTube song soared on Wednesday after a tweet by Telsa CEO Elon Musk about the viral children’s song. Shares of Samsung Publishing in South Korea soared more than 10% at one point during regular trading on Wednesday, before paring some gains to close 6.29% higher.
The company has no affiliation with South Korean conglomerate Samsung Group, even though they share the Samsung name. Wednesday’s gains came on the back of a tweet by Musk on Tuesday morning Asia time, which said: “Baby Shark crushes all! More views than humans.”
The stock remains off its year-to-date high of 59,000 Korean won in April, according to data from Refinitiv Eikon, though it has already surged more than 97% since the start of the year. Samsung Publishing shares were sitting at 47,300 Korean won by Wednesday’s close. The stock surge was another example of Musk’s apparent outsized influence.
Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and dogecoin previously saw sharp moves in their prices following comments by the tech billionaire. His tweets have previously also been linked to moves in the stock market in so-called meme stocks such as GameStop.
Shares of Samsung Publishing surged more than 76% in 2018 after the viral song “Baby Shark” cracked the top 40 charts in the U.K. The song has been around for well over a decade, according to internet search results, but the 2016 video cover created by Samsung Publishing affiliate SmartStudy has been a primary driver of interest across the world.
The video was created by its Pinkfong division, which SmartStudy says “develops creative, animated content to provide stimulating and fun learning experiences to children worldwide.” Pinkfong distributes its content through mobile apps and platforms such as YouTube and Amazon Video.
