AppLovin has come out swinging against the short sellers again. Yesterday, it published two more blogs designed to explain its practices and calm the markets, after hiring a law firm to investigate the various wild claims made about its business.
The adtech giant confirmed last week that Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, a law firm specialising in securities and corporate matters, will be conducting a review and investigation into the recent short seller activity.
That followed a third short seller report which sent AppLovin’s share price tumbling again, moving CEO Adam Foroughi to respond and address the claims last week. It was the second major share price plunge after two coordinated short seller reports made wild claims about how AppLovin operates in February.
In yesterday’s blog, CEO Foroughi explained in more detail how AppLovin collects and handles data, countering short seller claims that it is breaking the platforms’ terms of service and bending the rules to collect customer data. Its key UA product, Axon, is “built from scratch through brilliant engineering, not shortcuts,” said Foroughi. “There’s no hidden data trove.”
“The magic lies in our models’ sophistication, supercharged by a reinforcement loop. Serve an ad – like one with a mini-game – and we get dozens of interactions back. That data sharpens our predictions, building a moat: The more we serve, the smarter we get.”
In a second explainer, CTO Basil Shikin published some technical case studies to explain how data flows from browsing activity into AppLovin’s advertising tools, using examples from ecommerce clients like Crocs.
Commenting on the appointment of law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan last week, AppLovin boss Foroughi said: “We are fully committed to defending the Company, its operations, and its reputation from those seeking to manipulate the market through false narratives. We will take all necessary steps to ensure the facts are known and to protect our employees, stockholders, and partners.”
AppLovin stock had been rising steadily throughout mid-2024, and spiked dramatically in October and early February 2025 off the back of stellar earnings reports and a much-hyped move into the wider ecommerce space. But reports from short sellers Culper Research, Fuzzy Panda and Muddy Waters in recent weeks have caused concerns among investors – its share price has dropped from a high of $510 in February to $264 at market close yesterday.
As we revealed in February, AppLovin is also selling its 10 game development studios for $900m. AppLovin has said it is selling its games arm to a privately-owned company “that specializes in and champions game development”.
Our sources and reports from Business Insider suggest the buyer is UK firm Tripledot, but we’ll find out for sure in the coming quarter, AppLovin has said.
