Trader who inspired The Big Short bets against AI as tech shares fall (www.bbc.com)

Legendary investor Michael Burry — the trader portrayed in The Big Short — has placed roughly $1.1bn of bearish option trades that will pay off if AI-linked stocks such as Nvidia and Palantir fall, a move that coincided with a broad sell-off in technology names. Worries about an "AI bubble" knocked major Asian and US tech stocks: Japan’s Nikkei dropped 2.5% (SoftBank plunged over 10%), Nvidia fell close to 4% (after touching a $5tn valuation earlier this year), Samsung slid more than 4%, TSMC about 3%, and Amazon dipped ~1.8% despite its recent $38bn OpenAI-related deal. Burry’s X post — “Sometimes, we see bubbles…” — crystallized investor anxiety and likely amplified short-term selling pressure. Why it matters: the trades and ensuing market moves underscore growing skepticism about runaway AI-driven valuations and the sustainability of heavy AI-related capital spending. Technically, Burry’s use of put options (financial contracts that gain value as underlying share prices fall) is a leveraged, asymmetric bet against sentiment-fueled winners. Analysts warn stretched price-to-earnings expectations and high R&D/capex at AI-focused firms make them vulnerable to corrections, which could ripple through chip suppliers and AI investors alike. For the AI/ML community, this is a reminder that market incentives, funding flows and valuation discipline will influence product roadmaps, hiring and long-term investment in compute-heavy model development.