How can you borrow a share that doesn't exist?
So R quickly buys that share from E and refuses to sell it. Now B and D are screwed, because they both desperately need that share to pay back the loan that's about to run out tomorrow.
B borrowed it from A and sell to C.
C has 1 share of GME.
See, magically, A and C has 1 share of GME each.
I haven’t followed the history. In what specific way did driving the share price itself down lead GameStop to near bankruptcy?
While I do think shorting is a valid counter to the perpetual sunshine inflation of the stock market, and I do agree that Nikola got what it deserved in shorting, I just love that Elon Musk probably destroyed a couple billion dollars of craven shorting with a single word tweet.