Elon Musk goes to war against Tesla (TSLA) shorts again

Elon Musk is going to war against people shorting Tesla’ stock (TSLA) again. He says they will be “obliterated”.

Shorts, people betting against the stock of a company, have long played a part in Tesla’s history on the stock market and CEO Elon Musk has often commented on the situation – going as far as predicting their downfall and dunking on them every chance he had.

Throughout the years, Tesla was often topping the list of the most shorted stocks on the NASDAQ. As the automaker became profitable, shorts started to take losses and lose interest.

This year, Tesla shorts made some money as the company had a tough first half of the year on the stock market.

That changed over the last week.

Tesla’s stock is up 30% over the last week and it looks like the shorts are circling the stock again.

Hedge fund tracker Hazeltree notes that short interest on Tesla’s stock from hedge funds has increased over the last month.

NASDAQ reports a recent increase in short interest on Tesla’s stock, but it still only sits at 1.5 days to cover as of the last update in June:

For those who remember the level of short interest on Tesla’s stock in 2017-2020, this is nothing.

However, short interest is expected to have ramped up in recent weeks as Tesla’s stock price shot up, which should be confirmed in a short interest volume update in the coming days.

In a recent post to X, Musk said he expects those shorts to be “obliterated” – once Tesla solves self-driving and Optimus in volume production”:

Once Tesla fully solves autonomy and has Optimus in volume production, anyone still holding a short position will be obliterated. Even Gates.

The CEO specifically mentions Bill Gates, who has been known to short Tesla’s stock at times.

Electrek’s Take

I don’t know why he keeps making those comments. Of course, the shorts would get destroyed if Tesla solved autonomy. They know that. They are betting that Tesla won’t solve it or won’t before everyone else.

They have been right about that so far. Elon claimed Tesla would achieve autonomy by the end of the year every year since 2019.

Elon himself said that if you don’t believe Tesla will solve autonomy, you shouldn’t be invested in the stock.

I wouldn’t short Tesla, but it’s not too far of a jump from that to think that you should short Tesla if you don’t believe it can solve self-driving.

Beyond that, I don’t even know why Elon and Tesla fans hate shorts so much. They have been good to Tesla’s stock. Tesla’s biggest jumps in value included some short squeezes.