Nathan Anderson, whose activist short-selling firm Hindenburg Research became famous in financial circles by publishing a video of a truck rolling down a hill, is calling it quits.
The 2020 video became the most startling evidence of wrongdoing at Nikola Motors, the electric truck maker, whose founder Trevor Milton was later convicted of securities and wire fraud. Milton is just one of more than 100 individuals Anderson has helped authorities bring to justice since launching his firm in 2017.
“We shook some empires that we felt needed shaking,” Anderson said in a “note from our founder” announcing his decision to disband Hindenburg Research. He said “there is not one specific thing — no particular threat, no health issue, and no big personal issue” that led him to make the decision.
“It has been the adventure of a lifetime,” he said.
A string of high-profile successes made Anderson the most famous short seller in recent years. He was the subject of glowing profiles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and New York Magazine. Yet the high profile also made him a target, and in 2023 he quit giving interviews.
Indeed, the firm’s dissolution comes at a time when Hindenburg is under investigation by an India securities regulator for the brashest short report the firm ever authored — one that alleged fraud and stock manipulation at India’s Adani Group, a massive conglomerate run by one of the wealthiest men in the world.
In 2023, Hindenburg accused Gautam Adani of “pulling the largest con in corporate history.” The report shook markets and lopped $153 billion off the company’s market cap, although Adani has since recovered. Anderson, who was backed by hedge fund Kingdon Capital on the short position, said he made only $4 million on the trade and denies any wrongdoing.
Adani was the richest of a handful of billionaires whose firms Hindenburg targeted since the Nikola report put him on the map. They included such notables as Carl Icahn, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, and Chamath Palihapitiya.
But Hindenburg’s most recent short report, on Carvana, was less thrilling. The online auto retailer had previously been targeted by short sellers in 2022, when its stock fell by a massive 98 percent. Carvana has been slowly coming back over the past two years, and Hindenburg’s short report didn’t have the impact of its earlier ones. After initially falling on the report, which came out Jan. 2, the stock is now up 16 percent year to date. It jumped 10 percent Thursday, following Anderson’s announcement.
Hindenburg was known for publishing a large number of reports each year, which Anderson said he was able to do because of a sizeable staff, which had grown to 11 people whom he called “ruthless assassins” in their work.
Always something of an outsider in the clubby short selling world, Anderson explained his unusual background in his farewell note, “I didn’t have a traditional finance background. None of my relatives are in this field. I went to a state school. I’m not a slick salesperson. I don’t know any of the right clothes to wear. I can’t play golf. I’m not some superhuman that can function on 4 hours of sleep.”
He added that “in most of my jobs I was a good worker but mostly looked over. I had no money when I started — and after catching three lawsuits immediately out of the gate, I quickly had less than no money.”
Anderson said that working as an activist short seller “has also been rather intense, and at times, all-encompassing.” He said he often wakes up from dreams “from the general pressure of it all.”
“We are not fearless,” he said. “We just have faith in the truth and hope it leads us down the right path.”