Michael Burry deepens his AI-sector short bets — the trade is already underwater

Michael Burry, the investor known for calling the 2008 housing crash, added to short positions against several AI-linked stocks this week, he disclosed, betting against Nebius, Micron, Oracle, and the SOXX semiconductor ETF while adding to long bets on Mercado Libre and Zoetis.

Burry no longer runs a registered fund. His firm, Scion Asset Management, deregistered with the SEC in November 2025 and returned investor capital, so this disclosure came through his Substack, Cassandra Unchained, rather than a 13F filing. He added to his Nebius short at $247 a share, Micron at $924, and Oracle at $152, and expanded his SOXX position through March 2027 put options struck in the low $400s. None of the posts disclosed position size or notional value, so the price levels mark where he added, not how much capital is behind the bets.

“Nebius is what the top of a boom looks like.”

— Michael Burry, Cassandra Unchained, Substack

His case against Nebius centers on depreciation accounting. Burry has pointed to the company extending its server depreciation schedule from four years to five, a change that spreads costs out and flatters near-term earnings, while he estimates the underlying hardware faces roughly 50% annual value decay. He's also flagged that Nebius is signing short-duration AI compute contracts at $40 million to $50 million per megawatt, well above the $20 million to $25 million typical for longer-term deals, reading the premium as a sign customers want flexibility to exit fast if GPU economics sour.

The timing worked against him almost immediately. Nebius reported second-quarter revenue of $582.3 million, up 454% year over year, and the stock jumped roughly 34% on the print to around $259, pushing his short more than 20% underwater from where he first opened it near $211 to $212 earlier in August. On the long side, he added Mercado Libre at $1,850 and Zoetis at $73.60, saying he's "very bullish on both companies," a pairing that reads as a bet on Latin American e-commerce and animal health over AI infrastructure specifically, rather than a broad market call.

• Shorts added: Nebius at $247, Micron at $924, Oracle at $152, SOXX via March 2027 puts (low $400s strikes)
• Disclosed via Substack (Cassandra Unchained), not a 13F — Scion Asset Management deregistered with the SEC in November 2025
• Nebius jumped ~34% on its Q2 earnings beat hours after the short was disclosed, putting the position over 20% underwater
• Longs added: Mercado Libre at $1,850, Zoetis at $73.60

Burry's bet fits into a wider argument about whether AI infrastructure spending is outrunning what the underlying economics can support. the sector faced its own reckoning between capex and profit just weeks ago, and financing arrangements like Nvidia's reported plan to help finance a $500 billion OpenAI data center show how much capital is now circulating inside the same small circle of AI infrastructure players. Whether Burry's depreciation critique eventually proves out or the earnings beats simply keep piling up against him is likely to stay one of the more closely watched fights in the sector for the rest of the year.

This piece is informational, not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any asset.