With all the retail investors and the massive volume this should be easy to borrow.
Unless of course everything available to borrow is already borrowed and shorted.
BTW (HB) hard to borrow means you can't borrow the stock to short because there are no shares available. A broker sells you a stock. That broker then makes that stock available for others to short. The broker itself may short the stock to sell to you in the first place.
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My broker often offers money to allow share to be loaned out to those wanting to short. It actually amounts to fairly decent money. Thousands of dollars a year. I have never wanted to participate, but don't give up share for nothing.
I know what it is. I was wondering why you were asking. It is a little too early for brokers to be offering interest payments (or whatever they call it) for something bought within the past day or two.
I do not believe the transaction is considered complete until 3 days later.
The short side tries to keep their activity on the down low. Something like that would be a dead giveaway. Plus the broker can just short your shares anyway. At least they can do that in a margin account.