I'm more on the side of the Allkem CEO, whose company has been...

I'm more on the side of the Allkem CEO, whose company has been heavily shorted at different times - it sorts out the weak from the strong companies. Perhaps a reasonable compromise is that pre-revenue companies should not be eligible for inclusion in widely following indexes. CHN is a member of the ASX200, which has an actively traded futures contract. If you have actively traded derivatives (and ETFs for that matter), the ability to short the underlying constituents is essential to a functioning market. If CHN were not an index constituent, the supply of stock for shorting would much lower, however the quid pro quo is that is would also be much less liquid and less attention from investors. You can't really have it both ways... you want attention and a deep pool of investors so that you can raise capital, but part of that attention is that you become part of a functioning market. Note there were no complaints while the share price was increasing (which is almost always the case for other stocks... the complaints arise when the share price falls).