Tesla started selling on its website a branded pair of red, satin short shorts in early July 2020 – a jab at investors who “shorted” the company.
Now, the product has arrived on the Chinese website, carrying a price tag of RMB 420 yuan ($65), at least 10 times the price of regular shorts and comparable to the US version at $69.420.
That 420 figure is actually interesting, as the price Tesla CEO Elon Musk offered to take Tesla private in August 2018 was $420.
When Tesla previously opened the shorts for sale in the US market, Musk claimed that he even intended to send some shorts to SEC officials as well as short-sellers.
Tesla’s stock price has risen by 740 percent in 2020, and its market value has surpassed $700 billion, which has cost short sellers a great loss.
Analysis by financial data firm S3 Partners shows that Tesla short sellers lost as much as $40.1 billion in 2020.
Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of S3 Partners, said this is not only the largest loss suffered by any short-seller on any stock last year but also the largest short-seller loss ever.
In fact, Tesla shorts lost more money last year than the combined short losses on nine other stocks. Investors who shorted Apple lost $6.7 billion last year, only slightly higher than the one-month loss Tesla shorts took in December. Amazon’s short sellers lost $5.8 billion last year.
Information on Tesla’s China website shows that the shorts are a limited number of items and are available while supplies last.
But the question is, is anyone in China shorting Tesla?
