Hedge funds full of elite investors invested in a "short" for GME. A short is when you borrow shares of a stock and sell those borrowed shares, hoping that they go down so that when you return the borrowed shares, they're worth less than what they were when you borrowed them. If it works well, you sold them at say, $20, and now they're only worth $5. You keep $15 per share.

They borrowed so many shares and r/WallStreetBets found out, and invested heavily, effectively bankrupting Melvin Capital if people don't pussy out and sell by tomorrow (because Melvin Capital MUST return their borrowed shares by tomorrow, but they're like $200 each now lmao). It's political now because the elite don't want every day people to organize against them (like hedge funds organize against us). Not only are they in the hole at $200 each, but they have to BUY to cover their short, driving the price up further as they return those shares. There's actually no limit to how much money they could owe.