By Nate Wolf

SoFi Technologies' battle with Muddy Waters Research heated up over the weekend as the short-seller claimed SoFi refused to answer questions about its accounting practices ahead of last week's short report.

Muddy Waters alleged in a report last Tuesday that the lender and fintech company diluted shares to help management hit bonus targets and incorrectly booked borrowing proceeds as revenue. SoFi called the report "factually inaccurate and misleading" and said it would consider legal action against the firm.

SoFi CEO Anthony Noto bought around $500,000 of stock right after Muddy Waters' initial report, according to regulatory filings.

Muddy Waters doubled down in a note Sunday, saying that SoFi's investor relations team refused to engage with the firm -- which Muddy Waters says had reached out under a pseudonym -- following a 30-minute call on Feb. 6. SoFi didn't respond to follow-up emails with questions about its accounting practices on four occasions over the next month, according to a timeline of the interactions provided by Muddy Waters.

A fifth attempt to reach out led to a response from Robert Lavet, general counsel at SoFi, who Muddy Waters says asked it to verify its identity. Lavet didn't answer the questions, Muddy Waters said.

"SOFI's silence in response to our questions and report, in our view, affirms our conclusions," the firm argued. "If SOFI has innocent explanations and / or we misinterpreted certain facts, it should clearly say so."

Some of Muddy Waters' claims relate to a $312 million credit facility from JPMorgan Chase that the short-seller said SoFi borrowed.

"This is simply wrong," a person close to SoFi said Monday. "The $312 million loan with JPMorgan Chase was a loan sale, not a borrowing, as the report falsely claims."

SoFi shares fell each session last week, but the single-day percentage declines never exceeded 1.5% in what was a rough week for the whole market. The stock was up 2.2% on Monday. The response may have come down to pre-existing thoughts about SoFi.

"I think that several of the issues that [Muddy Waters] flagged were already known to the market before," Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev told Barron's in an email.

Write to Nate Wolf at nate.wolf@barrons.com

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March 23, 2026 15:33 ET (19:33 GMT)

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