I don’t think that would have been possible even if you were really smart at trading OTM Tesla options.
270x in the first six months of 2020? Looking at the price action of TSLA in the first half of 2020 it doesn't add up. Have to call bullshit unless we can see the proof. However 17x over the next 18 months, between mid 2020 and end of 2021 was very doable with leverage. But on the micro chance it's all true, he was going for Billionaire status. Pure Greed. But large quick profits in the markets does that. As a relative newb you think the good times are going to last forever and you have finally found the holy grail to market riches. This all keeps you leveraged up and motivated to continue until the eventual bust takes you down.
I remember seeing Swedish Tesla "bull certificate" derivatives (behaving like a 10x leverage daily rebalance ETF) having ~10000% hypothetical returns (if anybody had been insane enough to hold) for a while in 2020 during crazy runups, before being reset to -100% on next drop in share price. I assume you can do the same with options. So I am pretty sure the legal case is legit, you just have to be really stupidly irresponsible + incredibly lucky. Degenerates being degenerates and all.
The most money I ever made on options really fast was on MRNA during the pandemic. I had OTM calls on MRNA right before they got entry into the S&P 500 and my $2000 of call options shot up to like $40K in a few days. I got out with a $25K gain. I think if I kept rolling it forward I could have probably made another 5-10X but you need steel nerves to stay that long for so much time. I think I read a few weeks ago on r/WSB that someone turned $6K in call options to $1M+ on ASTS calls. Pretty amazing, but the kind of person who would let it ride for so long probably could lose as much. Reminds me of the psychology of roulette gamblers or even the amateurs who make it to the final table in the WSOP.
"Ah, the classic “let me do what I want” as well as “I chose to do this and now am mad I did this” with the regular “you need to protect yourself from yourself (see why)” tossed in." "Dude has a good case. Lawyer wouldn’t have taken it if he didn’t think he was going to win as this guy doesn’t have much money left. At least in the USA people who are authorized to sell securities as financial planners have a fiduciary responsibility to their clients and this looks like a clear case of someone violating that rule. I would assume Canada has similar rules." Maybe something in the middle of these comments are true, I do not know it. Usually you are reponsible for your own actions.
Traded TSLA on margins and won't take anything off the table when $88K -> $400M. Then $400M -> $0 from margin call and blamed someone else for not forcing him to take some $ off the table?
If you're up millions and don't take money off the table to ensure your financial security forever you're a moron. Sounds like someone hooked on gambling who was going to lose it all no matter what.