While many of the shorts have been vocal about their position over the past few months, Musk has taken the rhetoric to another level. With approximately 33 million shares being shorted as of the middle of September the shorts gained about $1.4 billion in one day. It did seem like this was one, if not the biggest, motivation for Musk to send out the taking Tesla private tweets. Since May 4 when Musk started this series of tweets the shares are down almost $30, which is about a $1 billion gain for the shorts. By not agreeing to a settlement with the SEC it seems like Musk’s ego got in the way of the best interest of shareholders .

Source: Forbes September 29, 2018 22:18 UTC