In 2022, before April Fools' Day, Volkswagen joked about renaming its U.S. division "Volkswagen" on its website. They swapped the "k" for a "t" to show support for electric vehicles- “Voltswagen”. The stock rose by a significant amount before the team clarified.
Elon Musk's April Fools' prank last year, joking about Tesla going bankrupt, backfired as shareholders didn't find it funny, resulting in a 5.1% drop in shares and a $2.3 billion loss in market cap.
In 2015, a fake Bloomberg News article on April Fool's Day falsely claimed Twitter received a $31 billion takeover bid from "Zorp Corp," briefly inflating Twitter's stock price.
The Banana Republic
In 2006, the SEC issued a prank press release about accounting fraud at Banana Republic, a fictional clothing retailer, causing brief confusion among investors and a minor sell-off in similar-sounding companies.