Michael Burry, the investor原型 featured in the film "The Big Short," has denied shorting Tesla Motors (TSLA.US) stock, despite having labeled the company's valuation as "ridiculously high" earlier this month. Replying to a user on social platform X who inquired if he would short Tesla, Burry stated, "I am not short $TSLA." This well-known hedge fund manager became a market legend for accurately predicting the 2008 US subprime mortgage crisis and heavily shorting subprime mortgage bonds using credit default swaps. This bet reportedly netted him nearly $100 million in personal profit and generated between $700 million and $725 million for his investors. Within the industry, Burry is renowned for his deeply contrarian investment style, possessing the ability to endure significant drawdowns and emerge victorious years later. After staying out of the public eye for several years, Burry re-emerged this November. He had previously issued multiple warnings about an AI-driven bubble in US technology stock valuations. He disclosed short positions in Nvidia and Palantir, while also accusing major AI spenders of misrepresenting the depreciation of their data center assets. At the end of November, Burry turned his focus to Tesla, writing in a column that Tesla's market capitalization had been "ridiculously high" for a considerable time. In the column, Burry not only explicitly questioned Tesla's valuation but also raised concerns about the company's equity structure and business strategy. He pointed out that if Elon Musk's previously proposed $1 trillion compensation package were implemented, it would further dilute the equity of existing Tesla shareholders and weaken earnings per share value. Burry also mentioned Tesla's repeated shifts in business focus in recent years: from initially concentrating on electric vehicle manufacturing, to subsequently betting on autonomous driving technology, and now increasing investment in humanoid robot研发. Each strategic shift has been accompanied by fluctuations in market enthusiasm, yet the company has consistently failed to escape pressure from continuous new market entrants, implying that its core business moat remains unstable. This is not the first time Burry has adopted a bearish stance on Tesla. In 2021, he established a $530 million short position in Tesla through his fund, Scion Asset Management, but closed it out after just a few months, stating at the time that the move was "a short-term trading strategy, not a long-term view." It is worth noting that since hitting a yearly low in April—driven by consumer dissatisfaction with Musk's political moves and controversies, coupled with weak delivery figures and profit pressure from intensifying EV competition—Tesla's stock price has staged a remarkable rebound, reaching an all-time high in December. However, concerns persist regarding Tesla's lofty valuation and its struggling core electric vehicle business. In terms of valuation, Tesla's current trailing twelve-month (TTM) P/E ratio stands at a hefty 313 times, significantly higher than the other six members of the "Magnificent Seven" (Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta, Tesla). For comparison, Apple's P/E ratio is approximately 37, Amazon's is around 33, and Microsoft's is about 35. Even Nvidia, which Burry previously shorted, has a P/E ratio of only about 46 times. Meanwhile, despite growth in global electric vehicle sales, Tesla's core EV sales have remained sluggish throughout the year and may face a potential second consecutive annual decline in deliveries. Furthermore, Tesla recently published on its website a compilation of analyst estimates for vehicle deliveries, which presented a more pessimistic average expectation for the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to market-compiled data. According to Tesla's own compilation, analysts on average expect the company to deliver 422,850 vehicles in Q4, a 15% decline year-over-year. In contrast, the average estimate compiled from market data was 445,061 vehicles, representing a 10% year-over-year decrease.
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