The army of retail traders who rallied around AMC Entertainment and GameStop a few years ago recently set their sights on Opendoor Technologies. They got the stock up, which is par for the course. Then they turned on CEO Carrie Wheeler, which isn’t.

Wheeler’s ouster showed the renewed power of these investor mobs, who are starting to make demands on their favorite stocks much as traditional activist shareholders do—only with more online memes and name calling.   

In Opendoor’s case, the manager of a tiny Canadian hedge fund emerged in July as the unlikely ringleader. Eric Jackson and his followers have since made additional demands for Opendoor’s board, and the directors appear to be listening. 

“This is the problem that everyone wishes they had, which is ‘Oh, my God, my stock just went up 10x because of social media,” said Derek Zaba, co-chair of law firm Sidley Austin’s shareholder-activism and corporate-defense practice. “I think a management team would want to be responsive here because they’ve been given this gift.” 

Many of these investors may have moved on from GameStop, but their influence on the stock market persists. Retail trades now account for 18% of stock-market volume, up from 10% in 2010, according to estimates by Sifma, a Wall Street trade group. Individuals are also wading into options markets.

Opendoor became a meme stock overnight. Known as an iBuyer, the real-estate tech platform is in the business of making quick offers on single-family homes before renovating and reselling them. It went public during 2020’s SPAC craze, grew very quickly, and then saw the economics of its business crushed by higher interest rates.

Opendoor racked up billions of dollars in losses. Its shares hit a low of $0.51 on June 25, putting the company at risk of delisting from the Nasdaq. That is when Jackson saw an attractive entry point.

Jackson, the 53-year-old manager who runs EMJ Capital, first caught other investors’ attention more than a decade ago by calling for changes at Yahoo and galvanizing public support online, despite owning a small stake in the company. 

Jackson uses his social-media following and the occasional appearance on CNBC to tout his stock picks. On July 14, he announced a fresh position of 200,000 Opendoor shares and argued the stock should rise to $82. In making his case, he compared the company to Carvana, the volatile used-car seller that dropped 99% before recovering to all-time highs.

“I noticed that that phrase—‘the next Carvana’—immediately seemed to resonate with people,” Jackson said in an interview.   

Opendoor went viral on social media. The shares notched six straight sessions of double-digit gains, eventually rising from $0.51 in late June to above $5 in August. On July 21, almost 1.9 billion Opendoor shares traded, accounting for roughly 10% of the volume of the entire U.S. stock market that day. 

Jackson ramped up his promotional campaign. He began taking daily trips to the rapper Drake’s Toronto home, standing outside with a sign requesting that Drake buy a share. He revised his Opendoor price target from $82 to $500.

At Opendoor’s San Francisco headquarters, management was thrilled to see newfound interest in the company, which was in its quiet period ahead of earnings. Executives discussed how to communicate with thousands of new shareholders, and manage their expectations, said a person familiar with the board’s thinking. For most of Opendoor’s history, large, professional money-management firms made up most of its investor base.  

Attention turned to the company’s Aug. 5 earnings report, and Jackson and his followers hoped for a big strategy announcement—perhaps a pivot to artificial intelligence. 

The earnings call left them disappointed. Many investors stopped cheering on Opendoor, and started calling for Wheeler’s head. 

“Fire Carrie Wheeler,” read one of many posts directed at the company’s X account after earnings. “She’s not a fit to be CEO. She doesn’t care about us shareholders.” Other X users, mostly from anonymous accounts, posted misogynistic attacks and AI-generated images of Wheeler. 

Many online commenters zeroed in on Wheeler’s decision to shed Opendoor shares for less than $1 as part of an insider-selling plan, and grumbled this was evidence she didn’t believe in the company’s future. 

By mid-August, Opendoor’s board could no longer tune out the scrutiny. Directors asked Wheeler to step down, according to a person familiar with the discussions, and Opendoor announced her immediate resignation in an Aug. 15 statement. The shares rallied again.

Wheeler had previously hired a search firm to begin a succession planning process, and the board decided to announce the search while appointing an interim CEO, the person said.

Opendoor declined to comment on Wheeler’s departure.

“We are energized by the passion of the Opendoor community and the perspectives and ideas that they are bringing to the table. We’re listening to them, as we continue to embrace new and innovative tools like AI to execute our strategy,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.

On Aug. 28, interim CEO Shrisha Radhakrishna took to X to reassure his new investors about his own confidence. 

“Actions speak louder than words: I’m personally buying more stock, and all members of our executive team have canceled their 10b5-1 selling plans,” he posted.

The shares climbed higher. Then Jackson took to X with a new set of demands.