I believe the statements were worded in such a way to try to make people believe that the short squeeze was no longer in play, but the short interest in fact never changed and maybe even went up. I believe they were also worded in a way to be technically correct (for example if they had multiple short positions, e.g. naked short calls, if they "closed their short position" that could mean they chose their smallest/cheapest short position to close and it would be technically correct).

The data doesn't back up the broader (and presumably intended) interpretation of their statements.

In my (inexpert) opinion THAT is the definition of market manipulation.

> I believe the statements were worded in such a way to try to make people believe that the short squeeze was no longer in play, but the short interest in fact never changed and maybe even went up.

I've seen this "claim" all over the internet. It's not true. The statements released by Melvin Capital were unambiguous and of course short interest on Gamestop is going to go up when it surges to such high prices.

There was a CNBC post about Citron and Melvin closing shorts but it was retracted.

No, it wasn't. Melvin has definitely closed, although Citron may still be in partially.

Why are so many people repeating the same misleading talking points over and over?

> Melvin has definitely closed, although Citron may still be in partially.

Source?

The original CNBC article that was never retracted.

Do you mean this one?

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/27/hedge-fund-targeted-by-reddi...

"the hedge fund’s manager told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin."

So this is completely based on a phone call and Melvin Capital can just claim that Andrew Sorkin misunderstood them.

There's no public statement from Melvin Capital, which makes me suspect that they were indeed just trying to manipulate public perception, they could have just not talked to journalists about their positions, which is their official policy.