sell off really good quality longs so that they can cover losses which are, if you were short at $10, a loss of 5120% that's a large compounding loss if the bets were on margin, which they often are. The broker that gives the margin will do a margin call and force them to close. It happens quite a bit.

This event is just surreal. This was really not an insane short at $20 if you look at what a stock is (ownership in (profits of) a company). However, the mechanics of this short over 130% of shares shorted was a critical vulnerability that was just exploited by WSB. They weaponized reddit.

I have shorted things, nothing personal.