Yes, the January 2021 GameStop (GME) short squeeze was a real, historic market event. Driven by retail investors on Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets, the buying frenzy forced hedge funds to cover massive short positions, causing the stock to soar from roughly $17 to over $480 in pre-market trading, creating extreme volatility and significant financial losses for institutional short-sellers.
The GameStop short squeeze was a stockmarket event that took place mainly in early 2021, centering on the video game retailer GameStop. Professional market investors who expected GameStop stock to decrease in value attempted a moneymaking technique called short selling.
However, the value of the stock continued to fluctuate wildly; he lost $15 million in one day, and when markets closed on January 29, The Wall Street Journal confirmed that his brokerage accounts held $33 million.
Users began buying shares and options in large quantities, which squeezed the short sellers. This community-driven buying frenzy caused GameStop's stock price to skyrocket. This situation caught hedge funds off guard and forced them to cover their short positions at much higher prices.
What is Keith Gill's net worth in 2025? If Gill's Gamestop position hasn't changed since he last made it public in June 2024, he owns 9 million shares, which as of early 2024, would be worth around $275 million. If Gill still holds both of these stock positions, his net worth could be around $580 million.
Some big names lost money on GameStop, but others made a bundle. The same goes for everyday investors — some won, some lost, and plenty were just in it for the casino-like ride. Wall Street is paying more attention to individual investors than it used to, but they're not keeping CEOs up at night, either.
Gill's belief in GameStop didn't just make him famous—it made him incredibly wealthy. After exercising his call options, Gill still holds 9,001,000 shares of GameStop. At today's price of $29.70 per share, those shares are worth about $267 million.
GameStop CEO George Sherman owns over 2.3 million shares in the company, according to Bloomberg News. These shares were worth $44 million on December 31, but reached $1.1 billion when GameStop's stock reached $469, briefly making him a billionaire, before the value of his stock dropped to $901 million on January 29.
As of June 13, 2024, Gill's net worth includes more than 9 million GameStop shares valued at $262 million, and about $6.3 million in cash. He owns 6.6% of online retailer, Chewy, stock. Gill stepped away from his online accounts in 2021 before returning in May 2024.
Free-stock trading pioneer Robinhood and Interactive Brokers took steps to curb the wild trading activity in heavily shorted names like GameStop. In some cases, investors would only be able to sell their positions and not open new ones. The brokers also raised margin requirements for certain securities.
Citron Research founder Andrew Left, whose fund took a 100% loss on a GameStop short during the squeeze in 2021, has said he has started shorting the meme-stock again.
Keith Gill's net worth rose sharply in 2021 due to his investments in GameStop stock. Before the GameStop surge, he was not widely recognized and had a much smaller financial profile. His net worth has remained high since the event, with estimates ranging from $40 million to over $200 million by 2025.
10% of the U.S. population owns 93% of the stock market wealth, per the Guardian.
Dumb Money dramatizes the true story behind working class Redditors turned investors who flipped Wall Street on its head.
On Thursday, Jan. 28th, 2021 Robinhood CEO, Vlad Tenev, decided to halt the trading of GameStop stock on his company's stock trading app.
The 7% sell rule is a stock trading guideline to cut losses quickly, advising you to sell a stock if it drops 7-8% below your purchase price to protect capital, remove emotion, and prevent small losses from becoming catastrophic, a strategy popularized by William O'Neil's CAN SLIM method for growth investing. It assumes that truly strong stocks typically don't fall much below their buy point, so a dip signals something is wrong, requiring you to exit the trade to preserve funds for better opportunities.
2021 losses
In early 2021 the fund lost over 30% due to numerous short bets that went awry, including GameStop. Users of the subreddit r/WallStreetBets made widespread bets believing that GameStop's stock would increase in value.