He’s their daddy. Meme-stock traders rush to Powell’s defense.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. 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."