You also have to remember that new short selling has been...

You also have to remember that new short selling has been between 25-40% of the trades in the last week or so and they are being absorbed by buyers.
Either the short will stop and cover on a lost bet, or the shorting has been deliberate to keep the price in a certain range and will be accommodated by some new issued stock.
New issued stock at this point would only happen if management had done a deal in shareholders interests and there are a couple of possibilities, but one I would put at the top of my list is MIN building our plant for a percentage of the company. They might also need/want extra spodumene concentrate as well so could be a BOA as well as a large shareholder.
I could only see this as being win win for both companies, should that happen. I cannot think of any other type of deal that would have the company issuing stock.

So if the above deal is not on then the play of shorting the company will have to be covered, and if there are virtually no sellers, then up we go with a rocket IMO as they try to cover but find just no shares for sale.