After explaining his reasoning behind cutting off Wall Street analysts during Tesla’s earnings in a series of tweets this morning, Tesla CEO Elon Musk issued a strong warning to people betting against the automaker.

Musk said that a “short burn of the century” is “coming soon.”

Ever since the California-based automaker went public, its stock often shows up the list of the most shorted stocks on the market, which means that investors are betting that the stock will lose value.

Back in 2012, Musk commented on the short interest on Tesla’s stock and warned that anyone holding a stock position against the company will have a “tsunami of hurt” coming for them. During the 12 following months, Tesla’s stock price increased by 461% – much of which was attributed to a short squeeze after Tesla reported its first quarterly profit in Q1 2013.

The CEO was back it last year after shorts reportedly lost almost $5 billion on Tesla and now this year, they are off to a bad start.

Now Tesla is back at the top of the most shorted stocks on the market with bets worth around $10 billion against them and Musk is out with a warning:

Oh and uh short burn of the century comin soon. Flamethrowers should arrive just in time. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 4, 2018

I asked Musk how he thinks it will compare to the 2013 short squeeze that followed his 2012 warning to the shorts.

He wrote back:

It will be next level. These are really big numbers. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 4, 2018

Indeed, 5 years later, the numbers are now much bigger and it’s now a different game.

Electrek’s Take

While Tesla is seen by most as a “story stock” – meaning that its value is mostly linked to its future potential and all the products in its pipeline rather than its current financial results, historically, Tesla had its biggest stock price increases after reporting a profit.

After several quarters of major losses due to major investments related to bringing the Model 3 to production, Musk now says that he expects Tesla could start showing small profits in the second half of the year.

Many analysts don’t believe it and short sellers betting against Tesla are certainly counting on it not happening. But if Musk turns out to be right on that, then he could also likely be right about his ‘next level short burn of the century’ prediction.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.

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