I don't think it's small, but anyway. Now there's no need investing much money in order to influence the market or any particular coin. As there are other ways to influence it - such as hype through the social networks or the opinion of any so-called "influencers" and others. We're looking after it for about a year already, if not even more.
that's why elon decided to just use that method, such a way of influencing the market most certainly more efficient than investing with huge amount of money while also having bigger impact.
since there are quite literally thousands if not more that get fomo'd and affected by the shill as an after effect, it would certainly have more impact.
but this kind of method could only be done by someone that has reputation, otherwise it wouldn't work at all.
generally some random meme coin would still requires the influence of capital to pump its value by investing and even adding some massive liquidity into the pool, but it's still can be done considering the market capitalization of these coins are usually rather low.