It's much better to buy Puts (limited downside). The problem with buying them now is that you're way too late. By now the premiums are quite high, even for huge declines. If you bought a few batches at different strike prices expiring 2026 in 2021 you would be sitting on some serious profit now.

It's never safe to short - by definition. A penny stock can easily rally 100% in it's death-throes and take out the hapless short seller.

As a retail investor, I strongly advise against shorting. Can you make money? Yes. Is the game stacked and rigged against you? Also yes.

The best thing to do is redeem TSLA holdings and put them in other companies (or better yet, into a broad based index).

Not yet.

(not investing advice)

Wait till it runs up a bit first and use a stop loss.