When Jerome Powell went public with his defense of the Federal Reserve's independence, the central bank's chair found an unlikely army standing behind him: the meme-stock crowd.
"He is an American hero," one user, using the handle 4Yk9gop, posted on Reddit. "We don't deserve him." The message, which appeared on Reddit's WallStreetBets, garnered thousands of "upvotes."
Powell, who has served as Fed chair since 2018, won over many individual investors for his stewardship of an economy that has helped propel the stock market to record highs. So when he delivered a stern message Sunday accusing the Trump administration of using the threat of criminal prosecution to pressure the Fed into making additional interest-rate cuts, some of those extremely online investors had his back.
"MY GOAT DOESN'T BACK DOWN," another Reddit user, who goes by jonneh, wrote in a message punctuated with an expletive. The "GOAT" acronym typically stands for the "greatest of all time."
WallStreetBets was immortalized in 2021 as the social-media forum that gave individual investors their voice during the GameStop trading mania. But on Sunday, it rallied around one of Wall Street's most recognizable figureheads: the 72-year-old Fed chair. The original post, which attached Powell's video, was the channel's most popular Monday.
Powell's support among young and social media-savvy investors extended to other platforms. Some posts commended his steady demeanor and no-nonsense delivery, others complimented his appearance and a few attached doctored images and videos of the Fed chair. In one, Powell strolls onto a concert stage in front of a cheering crowd; in another, he holds two handguns labeled "dual" and "mandate."
"He just has aura," said Zaid Admani, a 34-year-old investor and host of "The Rundown" podcast, paying Powell one of young Americans' highest compliments. "He's not here to play games, and people see that."
Powell has enjoyed a kind of online celebrity during his tenure. Investors attribute his popularity to his frequent public appearances, unflappable countenance and the Fed's role in what has been a historic bull run for asset prices. Powell slashed rates once the Covid pandemic threatened the economy, making it cheaper to trade on margin in brokerage accounts. The ultralow rates, along with other government stimuli and zero-commission trades, kindled a new generation's interest in the markets.
Since Powell assumed his role in February 2018, the S&P 500 index has climbed a blistering 163%. And in that time, individual investors emerged as an even larger chunk of trading volumes that can move markets and reverse selloffs.
A lawyer by training who lacked a formal economics background when he joined the Fed, Powell has steered U.S. monetary policy through the pandemic, surging inflation and last year's tariff turmoil. He opted to host a press conference after every one of the Fed's policy meetings, meaning his face has appeared across Americans' computer and television screens every six weeks for the past half-decade.
He has held the reins just as many younger, social-media savvy traders flooded into financial markets -- a cohort often game to create digital images of Powell dancing or throwing cash after an interest-rate cut is announced.
The love for "Daddy Powell," as he is sometimes called, has led to T-shirts, parody accounts and countless memes. On prediction markets platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket, users can bet on Powell's verbal quirks: whether he'll use the phrase "not our job" during his regular press conference, or open remarks with his classic greeting, "Good afternoon."
Traders can now wager on whether the Fed leader will face federal charges. On Monday evening, Polymarket users put the odds of that happening before the end of June at around 12%.
Allen Tran, 28, a trader and the founder of the investing community HaiKhuu Trading, said he owns a Jerome Powell trading card -- one of the few in his collection that he keeps displayed on his desk.
"He's looking at me trading," Tran said. "Judging me. Congratulating me."
Powell's response to the federal probe was unexpected, some investors said. So surprising, in fact, that they wondered whether the video that appeared online was a deepfake generated by a particularly imaginative artificial-intelligence program.
"The Powell we've come to know over the past half a decade was more measured," said Doug Hurstell, 48, a trader based in Houston. "I was surprised."
Admani was vacationing in Costa Rica on Sunday night when his cellphone rattled repeatedly from a series of text messages. Many, he said, were about Powell, in all his aura.
"The gloves have come off," said Admani, He said Powell's response was notable enough to draw his group chat's attention away from the weekend's football games and the Golden Globe Awards.
With his careful commentary and dry demeanor, Powell has come off to many investors as a straight shooter who has been focused on the task at hand. Even those who disagree with his policy moves or leadership at times, as Hurstell has, say they respect the policymaker.
"The job the guy had to do was largely unprecedented," Hurstell said. "Was he perfect? No. But he did a good job."
PrestondeTipp, another WallStreetBets poster, conceded nothing.
"This guy...threaded the needle perfectly," they wrote. "He'll go down as the best Fed Reserve Chair in history I bet."
