AUSTIN, Texas — Michael Burry, the investor made famous by "The Big Short," has opened a fresh bearish bet against Tesla — and the market barely blinked.
In a post to his "Cassandra Unchained" Substack titled "Trading Post June 30, 2026," Burry wrote that he "shorted Tesla at 416.22" on Tuesday, adding, "Happy it jumped back to this level." The Tesla position was the last name in a broader quarter-end basket of shorts that also targeted Nvidia, Caterpillar, Applied Materials and the iShares Semiconductor ETF, which Burry frames as an inflating AI and chip bubble.
A Familiar Bet Against a Rising Stock
Notably, Burry shorted into strength, not weakness. Tesla had closed the prior session at $379.71 before surging roughly 10% on Tuesday, and by the time his note circulated the stock had continued climbing — trading around $427 the next day, well above his entry point. In other words, the bet was already underwater almost immediately, a pattern that has defined Tesla shorts for years. The renewed enthusiasm coincides with growing investor interest in a potential Tesla and SpaceX combination that many see as Musk's long-game catalyst.
Crucially, Burry did not disclose the size or structure of the Tesla short — no share count, no dollar figure, no options strikes. That matters, because his most famous Tesla trade, a 2021 put position, was widely misreported as a "half-billion-dollar" bet when the headline number was merely the regulatory notional value, not capital at risk. He covered that trade within months.
