Celebrities seemingly have a lot of power in the world of business and finance. With a simple gesture or comment on social media, a famous face can cost a company billions of dollars as their millions of followers take notice.
Today, we’re going to look at the times celebs wiped mountains of cash from a company’s value within seconds. Including the recent event at Euro 2020 with Cristiano Ronaldo. We also have in the article moments involving LeBron James, Elon Musk, Kylie Jenner, and more!
If you like surprises, Thedistin.com suggests you read to the end of this article to find out few instances where companies lost billions because of celebrities actions on social media.
1. Cristiano Ronaldo and Coca-Cola
Firstly, we have Ronaldo and how moving a soft drink bottle cost Coca Cola a fortune.
The Portugal captain inadvertently caused a worldwide stir for turning his nose up at the popular soft drink in front of the media
Cristiano Ronaldo’s disdain for Coca-Cola has been one of the major talking points of Euro 2020, but why did his actions cause so much controversy?
Ronaldo sat down for his first pre-match press conference of the tournament before Portugal’s clash with Hungary, and noticed that two bottles of Coca-Cola were sitting directly in front of him.
The 36-year-old promptly removed the soft drinks from the view of the cameras and replaced them with a water bottle, rolling his eyes while muttering with an undertone of disgust “Coca-Cola”.
Ronaldo held up his water bottle before setting it down and said ‘Agua’ – the Portuguese term for water – in an apparent attempt to urge people to drink water instead of Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola’s market value plummeted by £2.8 billion after Ronaldo’s antics, but the company has since released a statement insisting that “everyone is entitled to their drink preferences”.
2. Elon Musk and Tesla
Elon Musk is second on the list over a habit of manipulating the value of firms with a simple tweet. This time, it was Tesla’s stock that took the plunge.
Back in 2020 Elon Musk decided to tweet a short comment yet it ended up being devastating to his own company. The message stated “Tesla stick price is too high imo”.
At the start of the day on May 1st, Tesla market value was at 141 billion dollars yet after it collapsed to 127 billion dollars, creating a fall of 14 billion dollars.
It also knocked three billion off Musk’s own stake in Tesla.
His action drew the eye of the U.S securities and exchange commission also known as the SEC.
Back in 2018, the group took Musk and Tesla to court for claims via Twitter that Musk was ready to take the electric car firm private.
Musk and Tesla were fined 20 million dollars each from this and he was banned from being the chair of the board for three years.
After the 2020 incident, the SEC approached the judge to bring the charge against Elon once again. They believed this tweet along with others from 2019 violated the agreement from 2018. However, the judge blocked the lawsuit as they didn’t believe it was too damaging due to a year of growth for Tesla.
3. Kylie Jenner and Snapchat
We then have Kylie Jenner and her message that badly injured Snapchat’s value.
Back in 2018 prior to all the drama on whether she was a billionaire or not, Kylie Jenner was super active on Twitter.
Her tweet asking her 24.5 followers (as of that time) whether like her, they aren’t using Snapchat. Her tweet read “soo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me… ugh this is so sad.”
The CEO of Kylie Cosmetics’ comment about Snapchat came after the company rebranded its interface that caused a lot of users to be upset.
This comment by Jenner caused her Snapchat share price to fall by six percent by the end of the day which meant the company’s value fell by 1.3 billion dollars.
The incident had a negative effect on Snapchat’s market cap for a number of days.
On the day before Jenner’s tweet, February 20th, the firms market cap was at 24.06 billion dollars and by the 27th, it fell to as low as 20.74 billion dollars. Snapchat’s market cap is at 98.59 billion dollars at the time of this article.
Jenner seemingly had a reservation about her comment as she tweeted “still love you tho snap… my first love ” 10 minutes after her original tweet.
4. LeBron James and Samsung Phone
LeBron James issued a public cry for help when his Samsung phone deleted everything. Unfortunately, he was a spokesperson for the company.
LeBron James and South Korean Tech giant, Samsung have had a long working relationship.
James has appear in a number of commercials and was a spokesperson for the firm. However, in March 2014, James tweeted that his phone deleted everything stored on it and rebooted to his 12 million followers (as of that time).
James deleted his frustration comment few minutes after his post and tweeted again that he managed to recover everything. James mistake may have contributed to Samsung’s fall in its market cap.
During 2013, Samsung had a value of 176.36 billion dollars but for 2014, it fell to 170.66 Billion Dollars. Samsung sales took a hit too, in 2013 they made about 207.5 million dollars, in 2014, it fell to around 187 million dollars
5. Sucheta Dalal and Adani Group
We have the recent comment by journalist Sucheta Dalal that made the Adani Group take a massive hit.
On June 12, 2021, business journalist Sucheta Dalal tweeted a comment that had a big effect on the Adani Group owned by Gautam Adani.
She alluded to a scandal going at the company behind the scenes. According to reports, shortly after Sucheta Dalal’s tweet, their share price dropped as low as 25%.
Only in April 2021, the firm had a market cap of 107 billion dollars. No long after the tweet the Adani group reportedly lost 7.6 billion dollars as their share tumbled and it got worst.
In the space of days since Sucheta Dalal’s tweet, the Adani Group lost 25.83 billion dollars.
6. Donald Trump and companies, Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II
and Boeing 747 Air Force
There’s then former president of the U.S Donald Trump. In a couple of tweets, he nosedived the value of Lockheed-Martin and another plane company.
During December 12, 2016, Donald Trump took aim at the F-35 planes that were being made by Lockheed Martin.
According to report the contract was worth at least 6.1 billion dollars. Trump stated that the program was out of control and that billions could be spent else where. This caused the share price for the company to nosedive from $259.53 to $246. In the end, 4 billion dollars was wiped from Lockheed Martin’s value.
This makes it a loss of around 28.6 million dollars per character in Trump’s tweet.
Only few days prior on December 6th, the former U.S president Trump tweeted that the cost for the Boeing 747 air force were out of control as well. This tweet seemingly knocked off nearly 1 million dollars from the plane manufacturers market share. Almost immediately by December 12th, Boeing’s market value had fallen by 1.4 billion dollars.
7. Sales of Brylcreem dropped by 25% after David Beckham, who was hired for brand endorsements, shaved off his hair.
Back in 1997, David Beckham was paid $6 million to be the face of the brand Brylcreem for the next 4 years. Beckham shaved off his hair halfway through the contract. Despite this, the brand didn’t drop him saying that the contract doesn’t say how long his hair should be.
But apparently, the promotions didn’t work and the company lost huge sales.
8. Christian Dior, a French luxury fashion brand, lost its sales following a ban on Sharon Stone’s films in China.
In 2008, Christian Dior partnered with Sharon Stone for several advertisements. The same year, an earthquake in China left 68,000 people dead. Stone commented that China faced ‘Bad Karma’. This not only led to a ban on her films in China but also affected the sales of the brand.
