Michael Burry Says Trump Administration Cannot Afford to Let AI Boom Fail
Key Takeaways
- •Michael Burry argues that the Trump administration regards the AI buildout as the primary pillar of the U.S. economy, creating a too-big-to-fail dynamic that limits policymakers' options.
- •An Ares Management analysis mapped $573 billion across 26 interlinked financings connecting Meta, Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Nvidia, OpenAI, and Anthropic through guarantees and backstops.
- •Burry has been building short positions against AI-linked companies including Nvidia, Oracle, Palantir, Micron, CoreWeave, and Nebius since the third quarter of 2025.
- •President Trump has said he will not slow AI development, describing the industry as potentially worth trillions of dollars and prioritizing U.S. leadership over safety-related risks.
- •Trump's July financial disclosures showed more than 1,000 trades, mostly in technology stocks, including sales of $5 million to $25 million each in Microsoft and Amazon followed by smaller repurchases.
Michael Burry, the investor best known for predicting the 2008 housing crash, says the artificial intelligence boom has grown too important for the U.S. government to allow to fail. In a recent post on his Substack, Burry argued that the Trump administration now regards the AI buildout as the main force holding up the U.S. economy. That, he believes, leaves Washington with very little room to let AI investment slow down, and it marks the latest in a series of public warnings he has issued about the AI trade.
“They cannot afford to let it fall,” Burry wrote, according to Stocktwits. He also questioned what tools the federal government could realistically deploy to stop a downturn if one began.
His warning was flagged in a post on X by the account Michael Burry Stock Tracker (@burrytracker) on September 28, 2026:
Breaking: Michael Burry drops a new warning on the AI financing web
Here's what he's flagging:
Ares Management mapped $573B across 26 financings tying together Meta, Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Nvidia, OpenAI and Anthropic
Every guarantee and backstop in the web… pic.twitter.com/XEeEA3TAnl
— Michael Burry Stock Tracker ♟ (@burrytracker) September 28, 2026
According to the post, Ares Management mapped $573 billion across 26 financings tying together Meta, Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Nvidia, OpenAI, and Anthropic. The post presents the map of interlinked financings, along with the guarantees and backstops embedded within them, as part of Burry's broader case for skepticism about the AI trade. The interconnection is the point: when guarantees and backstops tie obligations across many of the sector's biggest names at once, each participant's fortunes are partly bound to the rest, which is what Burry means by a financing web.
Burry's Bets Against AI Companies
Burry has taken short positions — bets that a company's share price will fall — against several major AI-linked companies, including Nvidia, Oracle, Palantir, Micron, CoreWeave, and Nebius. He has been building these positions gradually since the third quarter of 2025.
His main argument is that heavy spending on AI infrastructure may not lead to steady long-term returns. Burry has questioned the broader AI investment story on multiple occasions, saying capital spending on data centers and chips is massive but the eventual payoff is not guaranteed.
He also believes the U.S. government is poorly positioned to handle a financial downturn right now. In his view, policymakers have fewer tools available than they did during past crises.
Trump's Position on AI Development
President Trump, for his part, has said he will not slow down AI development. He argues that keeping the United States ahead in AI technology matters more than managing the potential risks involved. Trump has described the AI industry as one that could be worth trillions of dollars, and he has said he is not willing to hold the sector back over safety concerns.
That stance lines up with Burry's view that the administration has no real alternative but to keep supporting the AI trade. Burry frames this as a lack of choice rather than a sign of confidence. In his telling, it amounts to a too-big-to-fail dynamic: once a sector is seen as the main force holding up the economy, letting it correct on its own stops being a realistic policy option.
Trump's own financial disclosures show he has been an active trader in technology stocks. Filings like these offer the public a periodic window into officials' personal trading. His most recent filings cover trading activity from July, during which he executed more than 1,000 trades, most of them involving technology companies. He sold between $5 million and $25 million worth each of Microsoft and Amazon, then bought back smaller amounts of both stocks shortly afterward. His disclosed trades also covered Oracle, Intuit, Marvell, and Salesforce, as well as Meta Platforms, Nvidia, ServiceNow, Workday, and Adobe.
Burry the government now has a direct stake in keeping the AI narrative alive. If the sector weakens, he argues, the broader economy would feel the impact quickly.
Burry has not said when he expects a slowdown to happen. His comments so far focus on the risk that is building up rather than on a set timeline; the running record of his case is his Substack and the financing web he has been flagging.
Both Trump and Burry agree that the AI boom has become central to how the U.S. economy is performing this year. They draw very different conclusions from that fact.
Source: CoinCentral
