> Because TSLA is way too overvalued. He has to know that it is overvalued.

Indeed he does. He has talked about this publicly in various interviews over the years. [1]

> Musk pretended that TSLA valuation is reasonable. Musk even called out Gates for shorting TSLA stock

Musk definitely really dislikes short sellers, no doubt about that. However that is different from pretending that TSLA valuation is reasonable.

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[1] A decent example is the 2021 Kara Swisher interview, where he states I have literally gone on record and said that our stock price is too high. https://youtu.be/O1bZg7frOmI?t=2450