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Michael Burry won't be buying Anthropic stock when the AI titan goes public.
"The Big Short" investor has been bearish on the Anthropic's initial public offering since it unveiled its prospectus last month, noting that its spending commitments support his bearish thesis on the AI trade. In a Substack post on Wednesday, he shared more concerns about the frontier lab's updated S-1, specifically on some of the numbers Anthropic revealed.
"Not only is the company priced for optimism," Burry wrote, "it is betting its entire existence on that optimism."
The amended prospectus, filed on November 2, revealed that revenue surged to $17 billion in the third quarter, but it also showed compute costs are high and will keep rising well into the future.
His analysis highlighted a specific number from Anthropic's filing: the $895.4 billion that the company has committed to spending on AI compute power, chips and other types of infrastructure that it needs to run its frontier models.
In Burry's view, the figure is concerning, as even bullish investors anticipate that Anthropic's revenue will reach $100 billion in the coming year, a fraction of what its expected to spend going forward.
Burry said that future spending commitments would exceed bullish revenue target by roughly 12 times, and that investors haven't grasped how this could affect Anthropic's business and the wider AI trade.
"The market is paying attention, but I fear the full realization of what has happened here will only be self-evident in the rear-view," he stated. "I have no plans to pursue shares of Anthropic, and I do not expect to be a shareholder anytime soon."
Burry hasn't always been so critical of Anthropic. In April 2026, he described it as "eating Palantir's lunch."
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He also noted that he saw the market shifting toward a "plug and play" system of integrating AI models that would benefit Anthropic's Claude AI. But now, Burry is worried about "take-or-pay" contracts that the company has entered into with large hyperscalers.
"Under take-or-pay, Anthropic could end up effectively paying more for compute at a time when it is not needed, which would increase its costs and reduce competitiveness with other language model providers," he noted.
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Samuel O'Brient is an experienced financial markets and business journalist who has written extensively on a wide range of topics involving economics, technology and public policy. At Business Insider, he covers important macro and micro economic stories, including takes from leading economists and hedge fund managers, breaking IPOs, corporate bankruptcies, meme stocks and short-selling. He also writes on other markets such as crypto, oil and real estate.He has interviewed many of the market’s most influential voices, ranging from top economists such as Mark Zandi and Richard Thaler to prominent investors including Danny Moses, Andrew Left, Anthony Scaramucci, Louis Navellier and Grant Cardone.Programs such as LiveNOW from Fox , Taking Stock and Ticker News have had Samuel on to discuss stock market and economic developments. His reporting has been cited by The New York Times DealBook, Bloomberg Radio, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Gizmodo and TheFutureParty.Samuel began at InvestorPlace, covering investing, retail trading and macro economic trends. Prior to joining Business Insider, he served as a technology markets reporter at TheStreet. He is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and Trinity College Dublin.Samuel's work has appeared in publications such as TipRanks, EV and Observer. When he isn't chasing down stories, he can often be found browsing book and record shops. To reach Samuel, email him at sobrient@insider.com or connect with him on LinkedIn. He is also on Signal as Samuel Clemens.
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