Tesla’s stock price (TSLA) is reaching new highs again today, and the shorts who betted against the company are feeling the pain this year.
However, some high-profile Tesla short sellers are are holding on.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has often warned people not to bet against Tesla on the stock market.
He went as far as predicting a “‘next level short burn of the century,” and it now looks like his prediction could be coming to reality.
Tesla’s stock (TSLA) has been on an incredible run this year, and it is now up 650% year-to-date.
Today, Tesla’s stock was up again and reached a new high of $630 per share with a valuation reaching close to $600 billion.
People shorting the stock have cumulatively lost tens of billions of dollars this year alone.
Over the years, Tesla has been the target of some high-profile short-sellers like Jim Chanos, who made his name on shorting Enron, and David Einhorn, who made his name shorting Lehman Brothers before its 2008 collapse.
Those two have lost millions trying to short Tesla, but they are both holding on.
Einhorn recently blamed his short position on Tesla for the poor performance of his fund, Greenlight Capital, which is down 22% this year.
As for Chanos, he told Bloomberg that he still holds a short position on Tesla, but he recently reduced it, saying that it has been “painful.”
Now, another big player has entered the game.
Michael Burry, another famed short seller who made his name shorting the financial crisis of 2008 and was played by Christian Bale in the movie “The Big Short,” announced that he was short Tesla.
After we published an internal email from Elon Musk to Tesla employees last week, Burry took to Twitter in since-deleted tweets to announce that he has a short position on Tesla.
He also encouraged Musk to raise more capital at the current stock price:
“So, @elonmusk, yes, I’m short $TSLA, but some free advice for a good guy … Seriously, issue 25-50% of your shares at the current ridiculous price. That’s not dilution, you’d be cementing permanence and untold optionality. If there are buyers, sell that #TeslaSouffle.”
The hashtag is a reference to Musk saying that Tesla’s stock “will immediately get crushed like a soufflé under a sledgehammer” if Tesla doesn’t show a path to strong profits.
What do you think? Should Tesla short sellers just give up or keep coming and get squeezed? Let us know in the comment section below.
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Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
