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“Big Short” Burry: For humanity’s sake, the market should crash hard once—don’t let OpenAI and Anthropic go public
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- DeepHorus
Renowned short seller Michael Burry, the inspiration behind the film The Big Short, recently stated publicly that the market should experience a sharp plunge to prevent the artificial intelligence companies OpenAI and Anthropic from going public, arguing that this would actually be good for humanity as a whole. Burry emphasized that these two companies will absorb trillions of dollars and may ultimately destroy that money, which may be the smallest harm they could cause.
Burry elaborated further in his interactions with users on social media. One user jokingly said, "Crash the market so Skynet can't go public," and Burry replied, "That's pretty much the idea." Here, "Skynet" refers to the destructive artificial intelligence system in the Terminator film series.
At present, the listing processes of the two AI giants are moving forward. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said earlier this month that, considering concerns about artificial intelligence safety, going public in 2026 would be unwise. Meanwhile, a prospectus obtained by Reuters indicates that Anthropic is likely to complete its listing after the November midterm elections in the United States.
Developing advanced AI models and building the computing infrastructure needed to support their operation requires enormous amounts of capital. After going public, the two companies will be able to raise funds from a broader investor base, thereby obtaining more substantial sources of capital. This is precisely the core motivation driving their urgency to push forward with IPOs.
In a post on Substack this week, Burry stated that he is more certain than ever that his bearish thesis on AI will come true within the next year, having previously expected it to materialize in 2028. Based on this assessment, he has already adjusted his bearish bets across multiple assets, including Nvidia, Palantir, Micron Technology, Oracle, and the Nasdaq 100 index.
Bury believes that the debt-driven model of chip and data-center investment is difficult to sustain and is highly vulnerable to rising interest rates. Once the related capital expenditures slow down, "the whole system will collapse," and the resulting chain reaction may go far beyond market expectations.
Notably, AI concept stocks have continued to hit all-time highs this year, and investors overall appear not to have taken heed of the various concerns Burry has raised. Whether Burry's bearish position will be validated within the next year remains to be answered by the market.
