‘Big Short’ investor Steve Eisman called fears of runaway artificial intelligence “garbage” Thursday and challenged AI companies that warn the technology is moving too fast to back it up by postponing their IPOs and capital raises.
“I think this whole Terminator thing is garbage. Just garbage,” Eisman told CNBC. “Put your money where your mouth is. Postpone your IPO,” he later added.
Eisman, who said he has stopped adding to his AI positions and trimmed some exposure, warned that weakness at the leading AI labs could ripple through Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) and the broader AI trade. Nvidia is considering investing as much as $10 billion as an anchor investor in Anthropic’s planned IPO.
The comments come days after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for slowing frontier AI development.
Eisman Says AI Labs Lack a Moat
Eisman offered a different explanation for the urgency around AI safety.
“Token maxing is over, the open-weight models are taking big market share,” he said.
Token maxing refers to maximizing use of tokens, the units of text AI models bill by, often with little regard for cost. Cheaper open-weight models, which developers can download and run themselves, give cost-conscious customers an alternative.
“They realize that there are no moats around their business whatsoever,” Eisman said.
He went further, arguing the companies are “trying to manufacture a crisis” that could lead to regulation they could use to “create the moats” and “create the duopoly that they want.”
Eisman later acknowledged that he does not know the companies’ motives.
In July, Eisman said he would be “petrified” running OpenAI or Anthropic as cheaper Chinese models threatened to pressure pricing.
Anthropic Eyes $2 Trillion IPO
Anthropic is preparing what could become the largest IPO ever, potentially raising as much as $100 billion at a valuation around $2 trillion. That would roughly double the $965 billion valuation it received in a May funding round, Reuters reported.
“Is anybody talking about postponing IPOs or postponing raising capital?” Eisman said. “I haven’t heard anything.”
Polymarket gives Anthropic an 87% chance of listing by Dec. 31, with about $3.2 million traded on the timing market.
A separate market puts roughly a 73% chance on Anthropic closing its first trading day with a market cap of at least $2 trillion. The most likely range is $2 trillion to $2.25 trillion, at 27%, followed by $2.25 trillion to $2.5 trillion at 25%.
Why Nvidia Investors Should Care
Eisman said Nvidia, hyperscalers and the broader AI infrastructure buildout depend on OpenAI and Anthropic remaining healthy businesses. He called OpenAI “the weaker company” of the two.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said last week the company will not go public in 2026, citing the safety work ahead. Eisman tied the delay to that weakness. “I think that’s one reason why they postponed their IPO,” he said.
“If something were to happen to one of those two companies, then the chain would really fall apart,” Eisman said.
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