Michael Burry Claims Musk Selling Tesla Shares To Cover Personal Debts

Famous short seller Michael Burry of The Big Short game briefly emerged from a his latest self-imposed twitter exile to offer his thoughts on why Elon Musk might now all of a sudden be in the mood to start selling stock. Shortly thereafter, on Tuesday, Tesla shares plunged 10% in just minutes, leading many to speculate as to whether or not Elon Musk had started selling his personal stock. 

Burry jabbed at Musk this week, suggesting that the Tesla CEO may need to sell his shares because he had 88 million of them pledged as loan collateral. 

“Regarding what @elonmusk NEEDS to sell because of the proposed unrealized gains tax, or to #solveworldhunger, or … well, there is the matter of the tax-free cash he took out in the form of personal loans backed by 88.3 million of his shares at June 30th,” Burry wrote in a now deleted Tweet that was captured by the Business Insider tabloid. 

Burry also suggested that Musk’s narratives about “solving world hunger” or “unrealized tax gains” are diversions from the real reason the Tesla CEO is selling stock. Instead, the iconic investor insinuated that Musk needs to service the loans he took out against his shares.

Musk had 41% of his shares pledged as collateral as of December 2020 and 48% as of June 2020, Insider reported.

As he usually does, Burry also drew comparisons between today’s market and the Dutch Tulip bubble. He has made his Twitter header a Brueghel painting called “Satire of the Tulip Mania,” which shows tulip “investors” as monkeys, speculating, taking on debt, and fighting – all over the “mania” in tulips that took place. 

Burry has been vocal about warning about our current stock market bubble.

“People say I didn’t warn last time. I did, but no one listened. So I warn this time. And still, no one listens. But I will have proof I warned,” he Tweeted about markets about a year ago. 

He also commented on Tesla golden child Cathie Wood, earlier in the year, Tweeting: “It is too early, she is too hot, and, today, short sellers are timid, but Wall Street will be ruthless in the end.”

Burry, recall, revealed a huge Tesla short earlier in 2021 but as of one month ago he was no longer betting against Tesla and said that his position was just a trade.

Burry has also been vocal warning against a bitcoin bubble. Of course, if he was also short the crypto space in addition to TSLA, his losses in 2021 could be Jess Livermore-sized….