Tesla stock was hovering near its all-time high in early 2018, making it more valuable than General Motors, even though GM had sold 10 million cars for a $12 billion profit the previous year, while Tesla had sold 100,000 cars and lost $2.2 billion. Those numbers, and skepticism about Musk’s five-thousand-cars-per-week pledge, made Tesla stock a magnet for short-sellers, who make money if the stock price falls. By 2018, Tesla had become the most shorted stock in history.
