My understanding is:

> exploit the potential for a short squeeze

Not illegal.

> Take action with the explicit intent to cause a short squeeze

Yes illegal.

Context matters though as to which side a given situation might come down on.

The weird thing here is that buying the shares themselves to exploit the potential for the short squeeze, in itself makes a short squeeze more likely, no?

But yeah, it's possible if you have that intent in your mind, somehow it makes it illegal, the laws don't always make sense and I'm not an expert here.

I am pretty confident that large traders do this all the time though, have the intent to cause a short squeeze. But I wouldn't be shocked if there's something illegal that traders do all the time anyway (without advertising it on the internet!).

For rich people it is often just fat fingers. At that much money, you can't help but step on someone's toes.

For millions of manic amateurs, it's mania and collusion. The planning of it is evidence.

So become rich, before you break laws, seems to be the moral hazard here.