Shorts can also lose money, just like long positions.Tesla is...

Shorts can also lose money, just like long positions.
Tesla is not the only short that went wrong in the auto sector - see VW back in 2008.
Why people short Tesla - there is no fundamental basis for their current valuation.
Why shorts have lost on Tesla - as investors move more funds to green investments, they are starved for choices, thus piling into the available stocks. Also, Tesla making it into the S&P index meant that all index tracking funds suddenly had to buy shares, further boosting the effect.

Can Tesla re-write the book on how to make money in the auto industry like Amazon has for retail? That will take years to figure out ... Amazon was losing money for years.

Just to show that I am not solely focused on ADX, check out JPR (https://hotcopper.com.au/asx/jpr/), another stellar Australian oil company, this one operating in Kazakhstan. Raised A$85.6mn, lost A$130.7M, and negative equity of A$67.7M. Market cap A$8.6mn ... shares kind of pricy ... actually trade over a penny at 5.6 cents. They have debt of A$86.8mn ... so wildly more successful than ADX in terms of being able to gear up. At least they have shown more focus than ADX, always focusing on the Kazakhstan asset. What's the catch? Control shareholders are also the creditors, so if anything good comes of it, they will cram the other shareholders through the debt. Will they be able to manage this? Of course, they are very well connected rich people in country. So a story of if things go right, they won't really for retail investors ... unless you piled in in January 2020 at 0.79 cents when things looked even more separate than now (control shareholders then advanced more money in loans). And just to be complete, I do not own it or have any sentiment on the shares.