Michael Burry has moved to clear the air after reigniting debate around Tesla’s towering valuation, insisting that while he views the electric vehicle maker as “ridiculously overvalued,” he is not betting against the stock.
The Scion Asset Management founder made the clarification on Wednesday in a post on X, responding directly to a user who asked whether he was shorting Tesla shares.
“I am not short,” Burry wrote, drawing a clear line between his skepticism about Tesla’s valuation and an outright bearish position.
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The comment followed an earlier post in which Burry described Tesla as dramatically overpriced, a view he had already shared with subscribers to his newly launched paid Substack newsletter earlier this month. The remarks quickly drew attention, given Burry’s reputation as the investor who foresaw the collapse of the U.S. housing market ahead of the 2008 global financial crisis, a bet later immortalized in the book and film The Big Short.
Burry’s Tesla remarks land at a sensitive moment for the company. Tesla recently took the unusual step of publishing its own compilation of analyst sales estimates, a move that appeared to temper market expectations. The company on Monday cited an average forecast of about 1.6 million vehicle deliveries for 2025, roughly 8% lower than its 2024 performance.
If borne out, that would mark a second consecutive annual decline in vehicle sales, an uncomfortable milestone for a company long priced as a high-growth juggernaut.
That softening outlook sits uneasily alongside Tesla’s stock performance. Shares recently touched an all-time closing high of $489.88, underscoring the disconnect that valuation-focused investors like Burry often point to. Tesla’s market capitalization continues to reflect expectations that stretch far beyond car sales, including autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, robotics, and energy storage — businesses that remain either early-stage or unproven at scale.
The stock’s journey this year has been anything but smooth. After a sharp selloff in the first quarter, driven by intensifying competition from Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers and reputational blowback tied to Elon Musk’s increasingly incendiary political rhetoric, Tesla shares rebounded strongly. Even so, the underlying pressures have not disappeared. Price cuts across key markets have squeezed margins, while rivals, particularly in China, have continued to roll out cheaper and increasingly sophisticated models.
Burry’s comments also come against the backdrop of his broader skepticism toward parts of the technology sector. He recently disclosed short positions targeting what he described as aggressive accounting practices at some of America’s largest companies, arguing that profits linked to the AI boom were being overstated. That context helps explain why his Tesla critique resonated, even without an accompanying short position.
For now, Burry appears content to voice concern without placing a direct wager. His message draws a distinction many investors grapple with: a stock can be seen as overvalued while remaining dangerously expensive to short, particularly one as volatile and narrative-driven as Tesla.
In premarket trading on Wednesday, Tesla shares were slightly lower. Despite the turbulence, the stock is still up more than 12.5% so far in 2025, underpinning that valuation warnings, even from famous skeptics, can take a long time to catch up with market momentum.