When you short 140 percent of a company’s stock, the goal is to eventually repay the lender with stock worth zero or something close to it.
Even then, if the goal is to depress the stock price as some suggest, then it is quite likely as the stock drops sales of the stock outpace buys (that's what causes downward price pressure) which causes the number of shares in the float to rise. As expiration day approaches, the %short doesn't matter because no one will actually want the shares at that prices specified in the short-sale contracts ... so the short contracts simply expire, and the contract sellers profit from the sale of the contracts (not the stock) and the buyers are out the cost of the contracts (not the stock). And life goes on,
Only in a squeeze situation where unexpected buying decreases the float and raises the price is the %short interesting. That's why they call it a "short squeeze." The short sellers are "squeezed" into buying stock they don't want at prices that they didn't expect to pay to prevent larger and larger losses by expiration day because they ultimately MUST deliver the shares if the contract is exercised. The hedge fund is not "repaying any lender" they are on the hook to buy stock to deliver it to their contract holders if the price is higher than the contract strike price. They can relatively easily fill the obligations ... the catch is they have to lose a LOT of money to entice enough holders of the stock to sell. If they can't, then they're likely out of business either from losses or the breach of contract lawsuits demanding damages.
There are broader market implications here which may have been the real reason why stops were pulled (e.g. to get the capital to buy highly inflated shares of shorted stock, the hedge fund would have to panic-sell other assets creating unexpected downward market pressure in unrelated securities.)
This is just the way the options markets work (or are broken as the case may be); but killing the little guy to save the big guy is just not right and should NOT be tolerated!! Melvin/Citadel/RobinHood should be BARRED from options trading and fined heavily ... not for their options trades, but from their manipulation of trading by retail traders to save their own asses.
The anger here should be directed at the entities colluding to restrict trading (buying) after the horses left the barn. It matters not what risks the hedge funds want to take as long as the are fully exposed to the consequences of their bets.