Michael Burry isn’t shorting Tesla stock… at least not yet.
The famed investor — best known for his prescient bet against the US housing market in 2008, which was immortalized in the book and film “The Big Short” — was asked about this directly by someone on X. He replied that he isn’t short.
The question was timely, given the EV-maker this week took the unusual move of releasing sales forecasts that are weaker than many expected.
Burry’s answer might come as a surprise to some, considering the investor took to his Substack on Tuesday to criticize Tesla.
“Tesla sales falling. It is a ridiculously overvalued stock,” he wrote.
But he then added a cautionary note about how risky it is to short.
“Shorting it has been dangerous, and the puts are expensive. So maybe not much to do here for most people, except sell it if they can,” he said.”
Despite his reluctance to short now, Burry has bet against Tesla stock previously. In May 2021, a 13F filing revealed that he had taken a $530 million short position against it. A few months later, though, he closed it out.
Burry isn’t the only investor of ‘Big Short’ fame to take this stance on Tesla. Danny Moses, a former trader from Steve Eisman’s former FrontPoint Partners, also bet against the stock in previous years, although he closed out his position in 2024, noting that shorting a stock that isn’t trading on fundamentals is extremely difficult.
Moses recently told Business Insider that he doesn’t think this is the time to bet against mega-cap tech, despite valuation concerns. He added that he would need to see earnings growth not go negative but decelerate in order for him to feel comfortable shorting these companies.
Porter Collins, one of Moses’ partners, revealed that he sees Tesla stock as highly overpriced, noting that he considers it to simply be a meme stock driven primarily by retail speculation and adoration for Musk.
