Tesla short sellers wish Elon Musk had funding secured at $420
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Tesla has been among the most derided companies in the world, but CEO Elon Musk has been getting revenge against hated short sellers since the electric car company's June swoon.
Why it matters: Many probably wish Musk had taken the company private at $420 a share, as he said he would in an August 2018 tweet in which he claimed to have "funding secured" for the move.
By the numbers: Short sellers who have bet against Tesla's stock price surrendered a total of $2.89 billion in net-of-financing mark-to-market losses in 2019, and have almost matched that total in less than two weeks of trading in 2020, according to data from S3 Partners.
- Short sellers are down $2.80 billion in mark-to-market losses, including $1.25 billion in losses on Monday’s 9.77% price move.
Where it stands: Short sellers have largely tapped out as the company's stock has rocketed higher, but some are holding tight.
- Tesla short interest is $12.79 billion with 26.74 million shares shorted, totaling 20% of its float. It remains the second-largest short in the domestic market behind Apple, S3 said.
What happened: Wall Street has gotten very bullish on Tesla in recent months, pushing the stock's price from $400 to over $500 in less than a month and valuing the company at close to $95 billion.
- Tesla delivered a record 112,000 cars in the fourth quarter of 2019 and a record 367,500 for the full year, finally living up to its CEO's lofty promises.
Between the lines: Musk has 1 billion reasons to keep his foot on the gas pedal.
- He is now within striking distance of the performance-based stock grants he negotiated in his 2018 compensation package that would award him 1% of the company's stock if it reaches a $100 billion valuation, paying him $1 billion.
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