They SOLD what are called “naked calls” meaning they sold contracts that would allow the buyer to purchase the stock at a later date, but they never owned the shares themselves. When selling naked calls the hope is that the price never makes it to the strike($40 in this instance) and the seller just keeps all the profits from selling the calls and they never have to actually purchase the stock.They bought calls or puts? If they bought calls, wouldn't they have wanted to hold/ensure the price went above $40? Or is there something I'm not following?
In this case the stock price skyrocketed passed $40, so they had to buy all of those shares in order to distribute them to the options buyers.