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Tesla Motors (TSLA) was a popular pick to be one of the biggest losers from Donald J. Trump's victory in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. But aside from a small dip in the immediate aftermath of his win, Tesla's shares have done little but go up, helped, in part, by Elon Musks blooming bromance with the new president. And short sellers are paying the price. S3's Ihor Dusaniwsky explains:

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While long shareholders keep buying Tesla stock, short sellers have not only held onto their short positions during this rally, but have continued to sell into it.

Tesla short interest hit historical highs, topping $9.0 billion for the first time this month and is at $9.2 billion today. Short interest is up $3.4 billion, or 62%, since the beginning of November indicating an extreme level of short conviction considering the losses being incurred...

The average cost to borrow stock over this time period was 2.15% fee, with short sellers paying $43.1 million in financing costs in just over three months. More importantly, with Tesla’s stock price increasing from $190.79/share to $255.77/share short sellers incurred just over $2.3 billion of mark to market losses on their daily closing positions.

Adding together the short selling financing costs and mark to market P\L short sellers were down 31%, or $2.27 billion, in just over three months.

So what does that mean for Tesla shareholders? Well, if short sellers finally decide they can't take the pain anymore, it could mean more upside. "Having weathered over $2.3 billion of losses in three months, it might take a large price move to squeeze out these shorts," Dusaniwsky writes. "But if they begin to cover their positions there would be several billion dollars of buy to covers hitting the tape providing quite a tailwind to Tesla’s stock price."

Shares of Tesla Motors have advanced 0.1% to $257.91 at 3:06 p.m. today.