I have a question about this first point. If this is the case, why is the total holding of all institution holders just 100M shares (or 67% of total float) shown on NASDAQ? Elon has about 21% of the 149M shares. Short interest as of 6/30 (to correspond with the instituion holdings) is about 21%. If the 67% for the aggregated outsider institution holdings includes shares sold short, that would mean retail investors have a collective of 100%-21%-(67%-21%)=33% of the whole company. Is this possible?
I will take liberty to answer this question - understanding this mechanics is at the core of understanding of my RTSST (recalled triggered short squeeze theory). Here is how the math works:
Total outstanding shares: 100%
Total shares in circulation: outstanding + short interest = 100% + 21% = 121% (yes, short interest adds additional shares into circulation. The party that lent shares, still has them on record, but can't vote them until lent shares returned, either because entity that borrowed them closed short position, or because they were recalled by the entity which lent them. For the purposes of the record keeping all shares that institutions own, including the shares that they lent, are reported on forms 13F, data from which are summarized on the
Nasdaq Site)
Total institutional shares: 67%
The retail shares: shares in circulation - institutional shares - Elon shares = 121% - 67% - 21% = 33% (this , of course, neglecting shares held by other insiders, which is pretty good approximation as Elon owns overwhelming proportion of the insider shares)
Although majority of shares sold short were lent by institutions, not all of them were, as some were lent by retail SH.
The above was basis of my
napkin math awhile back in this thread. I should probably update it as it was based on Q1 figures. The bottom line conclusion was that before voting there will need to be recall of 22M shares or a huge 40% of the retail shares (as institutions are not likely to sell before the voting, and, incidentally, based on statistic collected in the research Article I linked above, they are not likely to sell after the voting either. I guess there is caveat here - unless there is major run-up in SP). This potential need to buy shares by short sellers in the quantity equal to 40% of the quantity of retail shares would result in a major event. I believe this was the reason for Elon's 'unwise' tweet.
