(Bloomberg) — A Palantir Technologies Inc board member deleted his X account after posting last week that the corporate’s plan to maneuver its listing to the Nasdaq Global Select Market from the Latest York Stock Exchange was intended to cater to retail investors.
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Alex Moore, a partner at Eight Partners LLC, who has been on Palantir’s board since 2020, posted that the corporate was moving its listing “because it’s going to force billions in ETF buying,” potentially driving up the share price to the good thing about existing investors.
The software company said on Nov. 14 that it’s going to transfer the listing of its Class A Common Stock to Nasdaq, and expects to start trading as a Nasdaq-listed company on Nov. 26. The filing from Palantir didn’t provide any specific rationale for the change.
The corporate said in a filing that it expects to be eligible for inclusion within the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index. That may force ETFs that track the index, equivalent to the roughly $300 billion Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1, to purchase shares. Palantir shares soared greater than 14% on the primary trading day after it was announced in September they might be joining the S&P 500 Index.
Moore, who was one in every of the founding employees of Palantir and worked at the corporate from 2005 to 2010, said the move would deliver “tendies” — a meme-stock term for gains — to retail investors.
A spokesperson from Palantir declined to comment. Moore didn’t reply to Bloomberg’s request for comment on the post.
“Board members shouldn’t be making posts like this regarding the businesses they serve,” said Amy Lynch, a former regulator with the the Securities and Exchange Commission and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and founding father of FrontLine Compliance.
The SEC will have a look at all trading activity and Reddit posts to see what was happening on the time of the tweet and who benefited from the tweet via transactions, Lynch said. While nothing may come of their investigation, it’s possible the corporate could look to remove him from the board, she added.
Palantir has long been a favourite amongst retail investors, garnering frequent mention on sites like Reddit Inc.’s WallStreetBets forum. Alex Karp, co-founder and chief executive officer of Palantir previously said he prefers the corporate’s retail investors and thinks analysts don’t understand the corporate.