The law says a lot of things. I'm ok with short sellers losing their shirts regardless.
The route for going private was to stop trading the shares, meaning I would never make good on that profit. Because ceasing trading is what going private means: I no longer hold stock at $420/share, I hold stock in Tesla which I might be able to sell to someone some day for some as yet unspecified amount.
Also someone that bought stock in that period would have lost something like 355->320 which is only 10%.
If someone leveraged up to take advantage of a short-term pricing condition then they get vastly reduced sympathy no matter which direction their position was.
The platonic long purchase is based on holding, and the question is structured as if it's following that same dichotomy, but it describes a bet that is in fact long while also based on near-term betting.
That's why in-context I think it is both technically correct and misleading, and the question should have been phrased differently.
But whether I should have said "dichotomy" instead of "misleading" still has nothing to do with the actual substance of the discussion...