Even after GameStop, Tesla remains the most shorted stock in the world

GameStop rocketed to notoriety this year after commentators on the Reddit forum r/wallstreetbets helped send the struggling video game store’s stock up almost tenfold in one week. The Reddit crowd was trying to combat enormous interest in GameStop by short sellers, who borrow stocks and sell them in the hopes of repurchasing them at a lower price later and turning a profit. If a stock’s price goes up, investors who shorted it are on the hook for potentially limitless losses, and GameStop’s irrational rally forced those betting against its stock to cover their losses.