Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller admitted Tuesday that he used AI to pen a scathing Wall Street Journal op-ed bashing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s debt buybacks.
Druckenmiller – the founder of Duquesne Capital who has been described as a mentor to Bessent early in his hedge fund trading career – defended his undisclosed use of AI to write the piece, arguing that it was a no-brainer.
In an interview with digital news outlet NOTUS, Druckenmiller said “of course I used AI” when writing the column, which generated online buzz about Bessent and Druckenmiller’s relationship.
“There’s a reason I moved from an English major to being an economics major,” said Druckenmiller, 73. “I’m not embarrassed by it … I write everything using AI now for the same reason I use a calculator when I do math problems.”
NOTUS claimed it used Pangram, an AI detection tool, to scan Druckenmiller’s op-ed and found that it had been written using AI after several social media posts made similar allegations.
Paul Gigot, the Journal’s editorial page editor, defended Druckenmiller’s use of the new technology, saying what matters is the integrity of the content.
“AI is a fact of modern life. People will use it to assist in their work and their writing, including with research, checking grammar, editing and more,” Gigot told The Post in a statement.
“The question for us is whether what we publish from contributors reflects an author’s original argument, and if the author has the standing and credibility to make it,” he added.
“In Stan Druckenmiller’s case, we have had a relationship with him for many years, and nobody can doubt that his op-ed is his genuine opinion.”
The Wall Street Journal did not immediately respond to The Post’s inquiry about whether it was aware that Druckenmiller had used AI to write the piece before it was published.
On its website, the Journal says it uses AI tools for several purposes, including translation and research, and that “Work that includes AI inputs is reviewed by a journalist before publishing.”
Druckenmiller used the same argument as the broadsheet, shrugging off his use of AI since the argument made in the opinion piece was his own.
“I don’t know why this is relevant,” he said. “My name is on the piece. It’s my message.”
Druckenmiller denied that “the whole thing” was written with AI and said he rejected several of the bot’s suggestions while working on the piece.
In his op-ed, Druckenmiller tore into Bessent’s plan to “at least double” government buybacks – potentially passing the $4 billion mark – in an effort to ease soaring Treasury yields and lower borrowing costs for consumers.
His article, titled “Let the Bond Speak,” argued the Treasury Department should “do the only thing that durably lowers long-term yields: address the primary deficit. Reform entitlements gradually and honestly, through means testing, indexing changes, eligibility adjustments phased in over decades – so that the burden is shared across generations instead of dumped on the youngest.”
As other news outlets noted, Druckenmiller’s op-ed included some phrases that bore similarities to telltale signs of chatbot usage, such as sentences with the pattern, “It’s not this, it’s that.”
Lines in the article included: “This wasn’t liquidity management, it was price management;” “not a malfunction but the machine doing its job;” and “The bond market wasn’t being a vigilante, as some would argue. It was being a pushover.”
The Journal’s parent company, News Corp, also owns The Post.
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