MW Opendoor's stock is rocketing again. What can make it keep going?

By James Rogers

Opendoor's stock hits 19-month high, has run up nearly 60% in three days and more than doubled in August

Shares of Opendoor Technologies are skyrocketing again as noted bull Eric Jackson said that the company needs to dive deeper into AI and rethink its business model.

It has been an eventful few weeks for Opendoor Technologies Inc., which has seen its stock soar amid leadership changes and a frenzy that sparked comparisons with prior meme-stock explosions.

On Friday, the stock climbed after Opendoor (OPEN) announced that Chief Executive Carrie Wheeler is stepping down, much to the delight of bulls such as Eric Jackson, founder of EMJ Capital. Jackson has been a high-profile champion of Opendoor and also called for leadership change at the e-commerce platform for residential property transactions.

On Monday, Jackson spelled out what he believes the company should do to keep the market momentum going, including a deeper dive into artificial intelligence.

Speaking during an interview with investor and crypto bull Anthony Pompliano, Jackson said if Opendoor would fully embrace AI, it could transform itself into the Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) or Google $(GOOG)$ $(GOOGL)$ of real estate.

Opendoor's stock, which has climbed more than 137% this year, rose 19.2% on Monday, for its highest close since Jan. 8, 2024. It has soared 57% in three days, and has run up 107% in August.

During the interview, Jackson also said that Opendoor's next leader should be a tech or product person. "Let's move ahead and find the right person," Jackson added.

Jackson also pointed to Opendoor's workforce, which he said could be reduced by using AI. "There's too much fat there, at this company," he said. As of Dec. 31, 2024, Opendoor employed 1,470 people.

"There's no question that this company could be more efficient and drastically reduce its G&A [general and administrative expenses] through fully embracing AI," Jackson said. Opendoor, he said, could do all the inspections of houses using AI, as well as using the technology to plan out renovations.

Jackson would also like to see Opendoor shift from being a so-called "iBuyer" company that purchases homes directly from consumers. "We need to borrow a lot of money from lenders, put a lot of debt on our balance sheet, go out and make firm offers, cash offers, to people, to buy their houses," he said. "And then we get stuck with the bill like we did in 2021 where we bought all these houses at inflated prices, the housing market goes south, and we're stuck."

Jackson described this model as "the black cloud" hanging over the company.

Instead, Jackson would like to see Opendoor completely rethink its business model. "I think they can totally switch to a purely asset-light model," he said, using the example of Airbnb Inc. $(ABNB)$. "All [Airbnb] does is sort of like sits up here at the top level, sort of takes in anybody's demands to rent someplace, somewhere in the world, but they never actually own the places and run them, they are just the interface."

He described Opendoor as fulfilling more of a "middleman" role.

Opendoor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Other heavily-shorted names such as Kohl's Corp. $(KSS)$ and Krispy Kreme Inc. (DNUT) also soared recently, in what was described as a meme-stock "mini-bubble."

Short interest as a percentage of Opendoor's public float of shares is 23.4%.

-James Rogers

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August 18, 2025 16:04 ET (20:04 GMT)

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