While most people were focused on Thanksgiving, Michael Burry — the investor portrayed by Christian Bale in The Big Short — has been escalating a public battle with Nvidia.

 

What makes this showdown notable is that Burry may actually have enough reach to influence the outcome. Unlike the usual AI-bubble warnings, Burry now has a large audience and far fewer regulatory constraints on what he can say. He’s not only betting against Nvidia and the broader AI boom; he’s actively trying to convince his rapidly growing following that the company’s dominance is unsustainable.

 

The question hanging over the market is whether Burry can generate enough doubt to meaningfully damage Nvidia and, by extension, other major AI players, including OpenAI.

 

Burry has been particularly vocal in recent weeks. He’s attacked Nvidia directly and sparred with Palantir CEO Alex Karp after regulatory filings revealed he held more than $1 billion in bearish options on both companies. The clash highlights the central divide in today’s market: whether AI is a transformational technology worth massive investment, or a speculative bubble waiting to burst.

 

Burry’s criticisms are pointed. He argues Nvidia’s stock-based compensation has drained $112.5 billion from shareholders. He claims AI companies are overstating the useful life of their GPU infrastructure. And he suggests much of the demand for Nvidia’s chips is artificially inflated through circular financing between AI startups and their backers.

 

Nvidia responded with an unusually direct rebuttal. In a seven-page memo to analysts — first reported by Barron’s — the company disputed Burry’s math, saying he miscounted RSU taxes and that its compensation is in line with peers. Nvidia also rejected any comparison to Enron.

 

Burry countered that he wasn’t comparing Nvidia to Enron at all, but rather to Cisco in the late 1990s, a company that overbuilt infrastructure during the dot-com boom and later saw its stock collapse when demand failed to materialize.

 

Whether this turns out to be a short-lived flare-up or the start of something larger remains to be seen. Nvidia’s stock has risen twelvefold since early 2023 and now commands a $4.5 trillion valuation — a climb faster than anything previously seen in public markets.

 

Burry’s track record, meanwhile, is mixed. He was celebrated for predicting the housing collapse, but since then has repeatedly forecast doom and missed several major rallies. Earlier this month he deregistered his fund, saying SEC rules were limiting his ability to speak. He has since launched a $400-per-year Substack, Cassandra Unchained, which has already gathered around 90,000 subscribers.

 

His rising audience leads to a bigger question: Is he warning about an inevitable correction — or could his own influence help trigger the downturn he predicts? History shows this kind of dynamic isn’t unheard of. High-profile critics like Jim Chanos and David Einhorn didn’t create the problems at Enron or Lehman Brothers, but their scrutiny accelerated investors’ loss of confidence.

 

If enough people accept Burry’s thesis, selling could become self-fulfilling. Nvidia’s recent volatility suggests his message may be landing with some investors, though the stock’s yearlong trajectory tells a more stable story.

 

Ultimately, Nvidia has the most to lose — from its towering valuation to its status as the backbone of the AI era. Burry, no longer bound by regulatory limits and now armed with a growing megaphone, appears ready to keep pressing his case.