At the risk of seeming like a jerk, I’ll state the obvious: market prices are set by the intersection of supply and demand.
In theory the fundamental value of a share is the fractional ownership in that company. If the company is successful then shares will have value relating to dividends or if the company is sold, etc.
However in practice the supply and demand of these shares is not required to be rational. People can have irrational preferences for shares, hype men can sell wild fantasies about the future, and so forth.
Back to your your more specific question, the share prices of Tesla have been completely disconnected to the value of the company for quite some time now. This is not opinion, this is plain observation of the valuation of the company relative to its revenues or profits or growth potential.
What is opinion is why that valuation has been irrationally maintained for years. My opinion that Musk has done a successful job in cultivating a cult audience around him of financially-motivated hype men who join him in promoting the prices regardless of their actual value.
Musk and his cult manipulates the media, both mainstream and alternative, with lies and publicity stunts painting a false narrative of future potential. Self driving cars, robotaxis, AI nonsense, and much more.
The regulatory bodies who should be stopping this fraudulent behaviour have responded meekly in the past, and now in Musks home country have been largely dismantled. This further encourages the cultists to continue their cycle of hype, disconnected from reality.
In my opinion, I find it likely many investors are well aware that Tesla is a bubble valuation. However so long as the hype machine continues, Tesla share prices can be a speculative investment as long as you can sell to a “bigger fool” later. No one knows when the bubble will burst, so much like penny stocks or meme coins it can be a gamble worth taking for some.
Back to the article for a second. In no uncertain terms, pension funds or anything of the like should not be gambling their funds on this house of cards.
TL;DR: shorting can be an extremely dangerous proposition, tread carefully and warily.
An anecdote about shorting stocks: A close friend of mine heavily shorted RIM in early 2009 when the writing was on the wall about the success of Android and iPhone.
However the stock proceeded to double in the months following, eventually squeezing my friend substantially and generating a very significant loss.
So this person was right about the future value of RIM as a company, and was even right about the reasons — but still lost out big time.
Even in case where the stock prices don’t squeeze you out, the carrying costs can be significant and easily eat all of the profits if you get the timing wrong. Most people should never short a stock.