“Big Short” Bury issues another AI crash warning: Nebius is the “epitome of the peak of prosperity”! Increase shorting of Micron, Oracle, and semiconductor ETFs

The Zhitong Finance App learned that “Big Short” Michael Burry (Michael Burry), famous for predicting the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, once again issued a sharp warning against the AI boom. On August 12, Bury revealed its latest position adjustments through the Substack platform. After Nebius (NBIS.US)'s stock price soared 34% after the release of the earnings report, it bucked the trend and increased its short position, adding that this AI cloud service provider is “the epitome of the peak of prosperity.” Meanwhile, he further expanded his bearish bets on Micron Technology (MU.US), Oracle (ORCL.US), and iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX).

Burry's criticism of Nebius was particularly sharp, pointing out that the AI cloud infrastructure provider “is the epitome of prosperity at the top.” He described the current pricing structure of the AI infrastructure market as a “backwardation” (backwardation) — short-term computing power is twice the price of long-term contracts, a phenomenon that reveals the harsh reality that GPU values are rapidly depreciating.

Buck the trend and increase positions: doubling shorting amid a 34% surge

The most notable move in this operation was to increase positions on Nebius. This AI cloud service provider, spun off from Russian internet giant Yandex and headquartered in Amsterdam, announced financial results for the second quarter of 2026 on August 12. Benefiting from the explosion in demand for AI infrastructure, its revenue for the quarter increased 454% year over year to US$582.3 million, exceeding market expectations. Nebius shares surged 34% in a single day after the earnings report was released.

However, this beautiful report card did not shake Bury's bearish stance. He announced on Substack on the same day that he had increased his Nebius short position at the price of $247.

The shorting operation revealed by Bury this time covers both individual stocks and industry indices

Nebius: Open short positions at $247 per share;

Micron Technology: increasing short positions at a price of $924 per share;

Oracle: Expanding short exposure at a price of $152 per share;

iShares Semiconductor ETF: Increase your holdings of put options due in March 2027, and the exercise price is concentrated in the $400 range.

Earlier, on August 6, Bury first disclosed short positions with Nebius and Oracle. At that time, Nebius's shorting price was about $212 and Oracle was about $145. The increase in positions twice in just one week shows Bury's firm bearish stance on the AI infrastructure sector valuation bubble.

As of August 13, Nebius' short holdings accounted for 28.8% of tradable shares, making it one of the worst shorted AI infrastructure targets in the market. The stock once rose more than 209 percent during the year.

Multi-head layout: a “safe haven” for e-commerce and animal health in Latin America

While fully shorting AI, Bury simultaneously increased two long positions:

MercadoLibre (MELI.US): Increased the position at $1,850 per share, saying “no further explanation needed, very optimistic”;

Zoetis (ZTS.US): Increased its holdings at $73.60 per share, and the evaluation was equally brief and firm.

The two deals revealed Bury's investment logic — allocating capital to “safe haven” assets with solid fundamentals and unaffected by the AI capital expenditure cycle in anticipation that the AI bubble might burst. MercadoLibre is a leading e-commerce and fintech leader in Latin America, and Zoetis, as a global animal health leader, all have stable cash flow and clear growth prospects.

Nebius's “reverse market” warning: short-term computing power premiums are doubling, GPUs are depreciating

Burry's bearish logic on Nebius is based on an in-depth analysis of the contents of its earnings call and questions the sustainability of its business model and economic substance.

First, Barry pointed out the “reverse market” structure in AI computing power pricing. Nebius revealed in its August 12 earnings report that the pricing structure of its AI calculation contract shows extreme “short-term premium” characteristics: short-term contracts (within 1 year): $40 million to $50 million per megawatt, sometimes higher; medium-term contracts (1-3 years): $20 million to $25 million per megawatt.

The short-term price is almost double that of the medium term. Burry pointedly asked this: “Pay twice the price for urgency and convenience? It's an extreme emergency”.

In the commodity market, this phenomenon of “the current price being much higher than the forward price” is called backwardation (backwardation), which usually means that the market expects the value of the product to drop rapidly. Bury applied this logic to the AI computing power market, stating, “Electricity itself will not depreciate in value. So either GPUs are depreciating, or customers are depreciating, or more likely, both.”

Second, Bury further criticized Nebius' practice of extending the server depreciation period from 4 to 5 years. He pointed out that Nebius' contract pricing suggests that the value of its computing power assets depreciates by about 50% each year, yet “slowly apportion costs” by extending the depreciation period in the financial statements, creating the illusion of immediate profit expansion. He suggests that this approach may be whitewashing profits because the actual upgrading of AI infrastructure hardware is much faster than its book depreciation rate.

Furthermore, Bury once again warned about the industry's huge off-balance sheet debt. In a Substack post a week ago, he wrote: “Fish are fed up with off-balance sheet liabilities, back-up promises, uninitiated leases, and purchase promises. They become very obese, very large, and easy to target”.

Oracle's Hidden Worries: Debt-Driven AI Infrastructure Gambling

Burry's bearish logic about Oracle is in line with his criticism of Nebius. He previously warned that Oracle's earnings could be overestimated by 26% to 27% by 2028 due to underestimating GPU depreciation.

At a time when it is shorting Oracle, the company is falling into a double spiral of “layoffs and borrowing” due to aggressive AI infrastructure investment strategies — it has already laid off about 21,000 employees in the 2026 fiscal year, while the debt scale has risen to US$129.5 billion. Oracle's plight just confirms Bury's core concern: when hardware depreciates far faster than the company admits, the gap between reported earnings and economic reality will widen dramatically.

Deeper warning: Nvidia's “500 billion revolving financing”

Bury's short layout is not an isolated act. He has previously issued a stern warning against the $500 billion AI infrastructure financing platform launched by Nvidia (NVDA.US) and six major Wall Street financial institutions.

Bury called this model a “Wall Street stunt,” believing that it essentially uses private credit, asset-backed debt, and Nvidia's own capital to fund Nvidia GPU purchases, forming a closed loop of “money from the left pocket to the right pocket.” He warned that this leveraged financing system based on GPU demand is repeating the risk model before the 2008 financial crisis.

He wrote on Substack, “A new boss, just like an old boss.”