The argument goes that bad actors are trying to tank TSLA by using massive short sales as a signal to the rest of the market that Tesla is a bad investment. That's not entirely a surprise. The surprise is that there's a historical precedence for it, from the very same bad actor investors. This pattern has played out with a company in the early 2000's called Fairfax, and then with SolarCity a decade later. The same thing is happening to Tesla - the graphs are striking. Tesla's response is to cut costs and become self-sustaining, wean itself from dependency on investors, and break the short-sellers' strategy.