Tesla Short Interest Rises to 35 Million Shares, 32% of Float

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 4:55PM EST · Published Dec 10, 9:35AM EST

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Tesla Short Interest Rises to 35 Million Shares, 32% of Float — © courtesy of Tesla Motors

Short sellers are taking an aggressive run at Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA). Short interest for the period that ended November 30 rose 13.3% to 36.7 million, which is an extraordinary 32% of the electric car company’s total float.

The same number of powerful and frequent rumors move Tesla shares. It either will or will not be destroyed by the electric car efforts of global giants, led by General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM), maker of the Chevy Bolt, and BMW, which already has several semi-electric cars. Tesla will or will not be able to make enough of the Model 3 units on back order. That, in turn, is based on rumors of whether the Gigafactory will operate at planned capacity, if and when it is done.

Finally, there is the overarching concern about whether Tesla will need to raise billions of dollars for a goal that now ranges from car production to home solar heating panels. No one is comforted that Elon Musk, founder and CEO, adds to the list each day.

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On balance, one question Tesla shareholders should ask is whether they are better off than they used to be. The Solar City merger is virtually over. And Tesla has a real line of cars, and not just one or two.

It is worth noting above everything else that short sellers have an argument. Over the past two years, Tesla, the ultimate hot company stock, has fallen 8% while the Nasdaq is up 15%.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.