The Big Short's Michael Burry Made $270 Million Betting On GameStop

Michael Burry, the hedge fund manager portrayed by Christian Bale in The Big Short, has made a fortune on GameStop's stock after holding it for years. Instead of shorting a stock this time, he played the long game and managed to make an incredible amount of money. In fact, it's far more than any of the Reddit investors.

MoneyWeb reported that Burry's company, Scion Asset Management, purchased 3 million shares in GameStop back in 2019, which were worth $16.56 million at the time. He's now turned that into $271 million thanks to the meteoric rise of GameStop.

According to reports, Burry made $800 million from the bets he made during the 2008 financial crisis, and now he's even richer thanks to his investments in GameStop. It's interesting, as he took the opposite tactic that he took in 2008. During that financial crisis, he made money betting against subprime mortgage loans, seeing that the bubble was about to burst.

In a since-deleted tweet seen by Business Insider, Burry said the situation going on around GameStop's stock price is "unnatural, insane, and dangerous."

"If I put $GME on your radar, and you did well, I'm genuinely happy for you," he said. "However, what is going on now--there should be legal and regulatory repercussions. This is unnatural, insane, and dangerous."

Without knowing the specifics of Burry's holdings and positions, we can't say for sure how well he's done with GameStop, but clearly he's made big money, at least on paper. Just last summer, the stock price was a tiny fraction of what it is now. Because there hasn't big any real upturn in the retailer's business--it's closing stores at a fast rate--the price is extremely volatile.

As part of his investment in GameStop, Burry is said to have called on the retailer to make changes to its business to improve results. Ryan Cohen, the billionaire founder of Chewy, made an even bigger investment in GameStop with a 10% stake late last year and he has now joined the board of directors at GameStop. Cohen would have made even more money than Burry based on the size of his initial investment, at least on paper.

Keith Gill, an investor who is famous on Reddit as DFV recently lost $13 million on his GameStop investment due to the cratering share price. But he reportedly continues to hold the stock, believing it will bounce back. Gill is credited by many with helping to kick off the short squeeze on GameStop's stock that contributed to driving the price up.

Right now, GameStop is only trading at about $61 per share, despite being at over $400 at the short squeeze's peak. Last summer, it wasn't even close to that number, however.

Multiple adaptations of the events of the short squeeze are being planned, with James Bond studio MGM picking up rights for a film. Netflix is also producing a movie of its own with the writer of Zero Dark Thirty.