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Tesla shorts on edge following $1.1 billion loss

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Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) short-sellers are down $1.1 billion in mark-to-market losses after TSLA stock rose 9.7% on Wednesday. The surge in the electric car and energy company’s shares comes on the heels of a successful 2018 Annual Shareholder Meeting, where CEO Elon Musk expressed an optimistic outlook in the Model 3’s production and Tesla Energy’s budding energy storage business.

Tesla is currently the most-shorted U.S. equity and the most-shorted stock worldwide in the Automobile Manufacturing Sector, with 37.7 million shares shorted and $11 billion in short interest as of Wednesday, according to a recent report from S3 Partners. Over the first five months of 2018, Tesla shorts saw substantial returns, up $572 million or 5.53% in mark-to-market profits. Since May 22, however, Tesla short-sellers are down $1.7 billion in mark-to-market losses as the company’s shares rose by 16.6%, turning a profitable year into the third straight year of Tesla short-selling losses. Wednesday’s 9.7% rally generated $1.1 billion in mark-to-market losses for $11 billion of TSLA short interest.

Overall, the financial technology firm expects Tesla’s short interest to decline as some short-sellers cut their positions after incurring $1.1 billion in mark-to-market losses. Considering the conviction that has been exhibited by dedicated Tesla shorts over the years, however, analysts at S3 Partners expect that a significant number of short-sellers will still hold on to their positions.

Tesla’s long-term investors are now looking to the company’s stock reaching $350 per share as the company achieves its target of producing 5,000 Model 3 per week by the end of Q2 2018 — a milestone that Musk dubbed during the recently-held Annual Shareholder Meeting as “likely” to happen.

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Wednesday’s 9.7% rally stands as Tesla’s biggest percentage gain since November 4, 2015. The stock closed at $319.50, marking the best close of the company’s shares since March 16 this year and making it the best performer on the Nasdaq 100 during Wednesday’s trading.

Apart from Musk’s optimism regarding the production numbers of the Model 3, a critical factor that appears to have resonated among Tesla’s shareholders was the company’s growing energy business. Earlier this week, Tesla CTO JB Straubel stated that the company has managed to deploy 1 GWh of energy storage worldwide to date. During the 2018 Annual Shareholder Meeting, Elon Musk noted that in less than a year, Tesla would be able to do another Gigawatt project, followed by even more growth in the years to come.

“In less than a year from now, we will do another Gigawatt (project). The rate of stationary storage deployment is going to grow exponentially. For many years to come, each incremental year will be about as much as all the preceding years, which is a crazy, crazy growth rate,” Musk said during the Annual Shareholder Meeting.

Elon Musk predicted a “short burn” after the company’s now-infamous Q1 2018 earnings call. In a series of updates on Twitter, Musk reiterated his expectation that Tesla would start seeing profits sometime in Q3 or Q4 2018, while stating that the “short burn of the century” would be coming soon. During that time, Musk noted that the deliveries of the Boring Company’s “Not-a-Flamethrowers” would come just in time. Interestingly, a handover party for the first 1,000 Not-a-Flamethrowers is set for this coming Saturday, June 9, at Los Angeles, just a few days after Tesla shorts took a $1.1 billion blow.

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As of writing, Tesla stock is trading down 0.32% at $318.49 per share on Thursday’s pre-market trading.

Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’

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Credit: MarcoRP | X

Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.

In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.

In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:

“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”

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This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.

The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.

The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building

Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.

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The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.

This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.

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Investor's Corner

SpaceX gets initial stock coverage from Tesla’s biggest bull

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SpaceX Starship V3 flight 12
SpaceX Starship V3 flight 12 (Credit: SpaceX)

Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).

Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.

“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”

Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12

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Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.

It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”

Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.

There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:

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“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”

SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.

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Elon Musk

Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst

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elon musk phone
Photo: Boss Hunting.com.au

For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.

Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.

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It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.

Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.

The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.

Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.

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The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.

SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.

There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.

The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.

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