I don’t think people really understand how Citadel’s internal structure works. It’s not just one mustache twirling villain, deciding what to do.

The market making unit is in a totally different part of the org chart, with its own PnL lines, than the hedge fund. In fact Citadel Securities is a separate company than Citadel Investments.

But most importantly there’s a legally mandated Chinese firewall between the two. Employees on one side are not allowed to discuss operations with employees on the other. This is enforced to the extent, that an employees access card won’t let them enter the other side of the division.

Citadel makes a shit ton of money as it is. Nobody there is going to risk major jail time with an easy to unravel scheme involving dozens of co-conspirators, just to make a few extra bucks on a tiny short position.