system
A chat on subreddit /r/wallstreetbets
human
It is “implied volatility”
Essentially it is the amount the price is expected by the market to move.

Tesla, being a particularly volatile stock, has a higher IV on options contracts.
As a result options will be more expensive because the risk the price will move is greater.
Thus, if the price moves less than the implied volatility, the option contract price could still go down despite getting the direction of the price move correct.

It might help to visualize the opposite extreme also.
If you think about an implied volatility of 0, that is something that will not change in price. If you write a contract to sell 1 dollar bill for $1, you wouldn’t get paid anything for IV because there is essentially 0 chance the price of a dollar changes from a dollar.
gpt
Here IV will also be extra high before earnings (when OP bought) and much lower after earnings (when OP has to sell), hence the crush. Right?