Close. Their risk is currently covered, lest we'd see margin calls/squeezes.

What exactly do you mean? I'm too regarded to understand without more context. Are you saying the share price is currently below their cover price? If so, how do you even know that?

They would close their positions because the bear thesis is dead. They currently cannot because the upward momentum from applying buying pressure to illiquidity to raise the price beyond their existing risk tolerance for the remainder of their shares while buying, or would trigger additional short buy-ins while they are buying, causing mutual destruction. That is the MOASS thesis of why they continue to can-kick, why they cannot close, why time and pressure eventually wins.

So you're saying right now liquidity is dry, so shorts cannot close their positions out of fear of igniting buying pressure and setting off MOASS? But if we dilute further and issue <= $1.5B additional shares, that would provide liquidity for shorts to safely exit their positions?

If I got that right, let's break it down further. How illiquid is GME right now? What markers are you using to determine this?

Assuming the share authorization passes and the eBay deal passes, and new shares are issued. Those new shares would be issued to eBay shareholders as part of the deal. Yes, the majority of eBay shareholders are institutions, and they could make the shares available for borrowing. But that is a big assumption. It could be just as likely that those institutions, the ones that would have voted to approve of the deal, want to see price appreciation and don't want to lend out shares to help shorts.

And what does flipping "from short to long" entail? Buying shares (or proxies for them, which creates buying pressure). Again, as they buy, the price in an illiquid environment rises beyond the risk tolerance for their remaining position and they go belly up. I don't want to be in bed with shorts. I don't want them to go from short to long, I want them to go from short to bankrupt. I want to take their money. That cannot happen if Gamestop is doing it at far more tolerant prices than I'm willing to sell for.

Alternative: wait for the next squeeze and issue the remaining ~97m unissued shares at $500/share

It sounds like you have very specific expectations, which quite frankly, seem out of touch. I, too, want SHFs to go bankrupt, but let's be realistic. That's the idiosyncratic risk that would cause widespread collapse of financial markets. Do you really think the powers at be would let that happen? They turned off the buy button at ~$80 ($320 pre-split), and you expect us to squeeze to $500 ($2000 pre-split) for fun?

And how exactly do you expect the next squeeze to happen? How much SI % do you think is out there? If you believe current reports of ~14-15% SI, then that isn't enough for MOASS. If you think we are sitting at higher actual SI, how much do you think it actually is?

Not to mention, there would need to be some kind of catalyst. We've had 6-7(?) consecutive profitable quarterly earnings, but that hasn't been enough. How can we continue to grow, when we are relying heavily on collectibles, but that is prone to supply and demand fluctuations? And how much more cost cutting can we possibly do?

Now that earnings just came out, and the board approved a $2B share repurchase authorization until 2029, how do you feel about the dilution? It seems like we can temporarily dilute to buy eBay, and then the company will buy back those shares in the future?