Famed investor Michael Burry is warning that the current rush to pour billions of dollars into artificial intelligence bears eerie similarities to the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s.
“History is not a perfect guide, but I see so many indicators both technical and fundamental lining up for the same conclusion,” Burry wrote on his subscriber-only “Cassandra Unchained” Substack page, according to Business Insider.
He added, “1999 went where no market had gone before, and I would say so can this one. It is already there on a number of indicators.”
Burry, who rose to prominence after his bet against the subprime mortgage market was featured in “The Big Short,” pointed to evidence that an increasingly large amount of junk-bond debt and venture capital money is pouring into the AI sector.
“High yield debt at 38% today vs 40%-50% back then belies the idea that today’s AI debt issuance is cleaner, backed by more profitable companies today,” Burry added.
Big Tech giants Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta have collectively said they will spend an estimated $700 billion on AI development this year alone. Meanwhile, private equity firms have poured massive sums into companies like OpenAI.
In his note to subscribers, Burry wrote that investments in companies that have yet to become profitable are a big part of the problem.
“We should remember VCs are funding loss-make companies like never before in history, and much more than in 1999,” he wrote.
Burry is well-known for his bleak predictions about the state of the US economy, warning several times in recent years about a looming recession and even picking a fight with Elon Musk’s Tesla, which he described in December as “ridiculously overvalued.”
His contrarian views have earned plenty of critics, including Palantir boss Alex Karp, who said late last year that Burry was “bats–t crazy” after the investor disclosed that he had a bet against AI chip giant Nvidia.
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