Honors College Theses

Publication Date

4-12-2023

Major

Finance (BBA)

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Faculty Mentor

Dr. Nicholas Mangee

Abstract

This research study explores the relationship between a CEO’s public statements and a firm’s abnormal stock returns by focusing on the case study of Elon Musk’s tweets and Tesla’s stock price over the course of 2021. A longitudinal dataset is constructed by analyzing how the information contained in tweets affected Tesla’s short-run stock price. The textual data is analyzed based on CEO tweets, the daily frequency of tweets, explicit and implied fundamentals, and sentiment. The content of Elon Musk’s publications may lead TSLA to have abnormal returns. The tweets are able to capture influences from fundamentals and psychology. When Elon Musk’s tweets are Tesla- related the abnormal returns increase, but more tweets per day reduce the absolute magnitude of returns. Though, findings suggest that a higher frequency of all tweets corresponds with regimes of negative abnormal returns. Greater social media pessimism is connected to negative abnormal returns, fewer CEO tweets, and greater internet search interest for Musk-Tesla-Twitter terms.

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