When Michael Burry returned to the public eye last month, the response was not just a market ripple but a full-blown social media wave. Famed for his prescient bet against the market before the 2008 crash (which was made into a movie, The Big Short), Burry now has his sights set on the heart of the AI boom: NVIDIA, Palantir Technologies, and pretty much all of our hyper-growth narrative that is tied to artificial intelligence. And for a hefty slice of the internet — from finance nerds to meme culture enthusiasts — it is strangely gratifying.
It all began in October when the famed contrarian resumed posting on X after years of silence. He delivered a blunt message: “At times, we see bubbles. Sometimes, there is something to do about it.” Just that line set off the chatter. Days later, documents showed that his hedge fund, Scion Asset Management, held bearish put options worth roughly $1.1 billion on NVIDIA and Palantir. The timing was blunt: the stocks were high-flying, AI enthusiasm was rising, and Burry was taking a stand against it.
On social platforms, the response was a mix of awe and amusement. One viral post read “Michael Burry right now” above a vintage meme of Michael Burry calmly standing amid bedlam. Another user celebrated the slide in Palantir's shares (down 25 percent since early November), adding, “Short seller season is open.” Of course, not everyone cheered. The CEO of Palantir, Alex Karp, labeled the wagers “bats-t crazy,” saying Burry is ignoring the transformative capacity of AI and targeting companies that were “actually helping people.”
But why has the internet devoted so much attention to it? There are a few layers. For one, Burry has returned in a big way — emerging from years of silence with a contrarian thesis just as excitement about AI reached its fever pitch. That is drama built in, as it were. Second, his critique isn’t vague. He’s focused on something more specific: hardware depreciation, “give-and-take” deals among AI companies, and what he calls “artificially inflated” earnings. In other words, he’s gambling that the A.I. phenomenon is propped up by flimsier infrastructure than its hype would have you believe. Third, the narrative lines into a more general investor anxiety: valuations are stratospheric, competitive dynamics are intense, hardware cycles are compressing, and many wonder whether we have already overcooked the AI story. (Burry himself is the kind of nihilist or pessimist who thinks other people really don’t.) Burry’s act is to lend doubt a voice — and the internet loves a skeptic in a moment of excess.
For all the bluster, his timing and approach are a gamble. NVIDIA just delivered blowout earnings in the most recent quarter, and its management sees AI infrastructure that could be worth multi-trillion dollars by 2030. If that comes to pass, Burry’s wager may end up being less a prescient investment than an early headline-grabber. But online, that danger only ramps up the show: it’s less about whether he gets it right at this particular moment and more about the drama of someone willing to bet against the dominant narrative.
Other market watchers warn that Burry is not the only one raising alarm bells — others have voiced concerns about hardware lifecycles, inflation in capex, supply-chain tensions, and component shortages. But there’s one thing different about Burry’s return: It’s not just a run-of-the-mill spook; it’s a historic investor taking a big swing at the market with millions of social media watchers watching. It’s that overlap of Big Finance and meme culture that explains why this story is resonating wildly, not only on trading forums but also in threads, subreddits, and TikTok videos.
There are two lessons here for readers and investors. One: popular narratives — tech in particular, but also others — don’t go unchallenged (forever). When someone with Burry’s record sounds the bubble alarm, you have to step back and reconsider. Two: the market is always as much about psychology as it is about fundamentals. Regardless of whether Burry’s thesis is correct or not, the fact that it’s gaining traction says something about sentiment. If enough investors start to think that the assumptions about infrastructure or earnings are wrong, the market can move — even if the businesses themselves remain powerful.
The internet’s not merely watching as Michael Burry bets against the AI trade — it’s cheering, jeering, analyzing, and, with algorithms running amok amid GameStop gets, he has made a cultural spectacle of it. His brief crusade against NVIDIA and the AI behemoths is not only financial news; it’s a meme, a sideshow, an exclamation point in confounding market times. Whether he’s right or wrong, he can still make jaws drop, and the simple fact that we’re now watching him play is enough to keep everyone watching.
