He insists they are deliberately trying to hurt the company by driving down shares, cutting off the company's access to capital markets. In 2018 Musk even floated the idea of taking Tesla private – not having to deal with shorts was a major motivation for that plan. At the time, he said their " negative propaganda " was another reason to get out of the public market, and that being a public company creates "perverse incentives for people to try to harm what we're all trying to achieve."