American billionaire Elon Musk has just warned prominent businessman Bill Gates and all other TSLA short sellers who still maintain a position against the electric automaker.
Tesla short sellers to be “obliterated,” Musk says
Chief Executive Elon Musk declared in his recent X post that all people shorting Tesla’s stock will soon be “obliterated.”
CEO Musk’s remarks came in response to X user Whole Mars Catalog’s repost about $TSLA bears.
“Once Tesla fully solves autonomy and has Optimus in volume production, anyone still holding a short position will be obliterated. Even Gates.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on X
Tesla was often leading the list of the most shorted stocks on the NASDAQ throughout the year. As it became profitable, shorts have faced huge losses.
However, shorts recently gained profit as Tesla had a challenging H1 2024 on the stock market. It changed over the prior week as Tesla’s stock surged 30%, and it appears that short sellers are circling the stock again.
Hedge fund tracker Hazeltree asserted that short interest on Tesla’s stock from hedge funds has grown over June 2024.
Who are short sellers?
“Shorts” basically refers to people betting against a company’s stock.
Tesla’s stock has a long history of being targeted by investors who are betting on its decline. CEO Musk has frequently addressed this issue, even predicting their failure and publicly mocking them whenever possible. Musk previously asserted that this investment technique goes against the principles of investing.
These Tesla skeptics have long argued the electric automaker is financially unsustainable. They have even raised concerns about Tesla’s financial reporting accuracy, and their bets against the company have resulted in significant losses. Many Tesla short sellers have already quit years ago, but many of them still remain.
CEO Musk’s plans
CEO Musk is highly optimistic that Tesla short sellers will soon face even greater distress as the company strives to solve autonomy through its Full Self-Driving (FSD) suite and accelerate Optimus humanoid bot production.
Tesla aims to kick off the last steps toward solving full autonomy on August 8, 2024. It announced plans to introduce the new Robotaxi in a planned launch event.
However, skepticism remains even among Tesla supporters as Musk has a reputation for announcing ambitious timelines for new models only to face multiple delays.
Nonetheless, Tesla remains one of the leaders in semi-autonomous driving technology. The innovative Autopilot and FSD have accumulated a substantial number of driving miles for the neural network, further refining the performance of both ADAS with every mile.
Tesla shares surged more than 9% today on its strong quarterly delivery figures. It has increased almost 30% in the past month. Its stock has shot up more than 1,300% in the previous five years.
