It's been a rough week to bet against Elon Musk and Tesla (TSLA).
Tesla short sellers are down more than $5 billion in the past five days, per data from S3 Partners, as the stock has rallied nearly 40% since the company reported quarterly results after the bell on April 23.
Tesla stock was up about 15% on Monday alone after reports the electric vehicle maker has won approval to deploy full self-driving autonomous software in China. This extended gains from the prior week when Musk promised a new low-cost vehicle and reassured investors Tesla can lead the way in autonomous ridesharing.
The stock was down more than 40% on the year entering its first quarter earnings report as weak fourth quarter results and lower-than-expected first quarter vehicle deliveries had weighed on the fundamental story for Tesla.
This fueled bearish sentiment on Tesla across Wall Street as investors built up the third-largest short position of any US company. Wedbush Securities managing director Dan Ives, a noted longtime bull of the electric vehicle maker, called Tesla's position at the start of April a "turning point."
"We view this as a seminal moment in the Tesla story for Musk to either turn this around and reverse the black eye 1Q performance," Ives wrote on April 2. "Otherwise, some darker days could clearly be ahead that could disrupt the long-term Tesla narrative."
The turnaround has come through thus far, punishing shorts on the stock to the tune of a nearly $3 billion loss in Monday's trading day alone. Still, S3 partners managing director Ihor Dusaniwsky noted the move higher in Tesla shares recently shouldn't be categorized as a short squeeze.
In fact, 2 million new shares have been shorted into the rally over the past week, per Dusaniwsky, and investors are still up $4.1 billion on their short positions against Tesla this year. This speaks to the split stance Wall Street maintains on what happens next for the stock.
Tesla stock is rated a Buy by 23 analysts, a Hold by 24, and a Sell by 14.
Ives for his part has turned bullish once more and maintains an Outperform rating and $275 price target.
"Musk winning FSD approval in the key China market is a watershed moment for the Tesla story in our view," Ives wrote in a note on Monday.
But not everyone shares that sentiment.
"We expect Tesla shares may be rescued near term from the effect of lower near-term earnings expectations, on account of efforts to refocus attention on autonomous robo-taxis and the proclamation yesterday that certain new product introductions previously planned for 2H25 would be accelerated in an effort to rekindle growth," wrote JPMorgan automotive equity research analyst Ryan Brinkman after Tesla's earnings on April 24.
"However, we do not think the shares can sustain long term their current still lofty valuation as investors increasingly incorporate the implications of the near-term expectations reset for long-term growth."
Josh Schafer is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X @_joshschafer.
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