Alex Karp blasts ‘Big Short’ investor Michael Burry as ‘bats— crazy’ for bets against Palantir, Nvidia
palantir CEO Alex Karp has lashed out against short sellers, specifically calling out Michael Burry, following a filing that revealed the investor of “The Big Short” fame had bet against the AI software company as well as Nvidia at the end of the last quarter.
“The two companies he sells to make all the money, which is weird,” Karp told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “The idea that chips and ontology are what you want to shorten is ridiculous.”
“It actually short-circuits the AI… It was us and Nvidia,” Karp added.
Palantir shares tumbled nearly 8% in premarket trading Tuesday, even as the software company beat Wall Street forecasts for the third quarter and offered optimistic guidance. Investors have become increasingly wary of high valuations in AI-related names. Palantir shares, which were up 173% for the year entering Tuesday’s trading, had a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 228. Nvidia is down more than 2% after gaining more than 50% this year.
“I think this behavior is egregious, and I will stick around when it is proven wrong,” said Karp, one of the short sellers.
Burry’s hedge fund, Scion Asset Management, disclosed put options worth about $187 million against Nvidia and $912 million against Palantir in a filing as of Sept. 30. Strike prices or expiration dates of the contracts were not specified in the application.
It’s unclear whether Burry profited from Tuesday’s declines. The filing reflects his positions at the end of September, and he may have adjusted his portfolio since then by now.
“It’s not even clear that he gave us an open position. He probably just said, ‘How do I present my position and not look like an idiot?'” Karp said. “It is for,” he said.
The statement comes after Burry hinted at renewed caution in markets in a cryptic post on X last week.
“Sometimes we see bubbles. Sometimes there’s something to be done about it. Sometimes the only winning move is not to play,” he wrote to his 1.3 million followers on the platform.
Burry gained fame for his prescient bet against mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 financial crisis; it was a trade depicted in Michael Lewis’s The Big Short and the Oscar-winning film of the same name.
“The situation with shorts is very complicated… frankly, I think what’s going on here is market manipulation,” Karp said. “We had the best results anyone has ever seen. It’s not even clear that he didn’t do this to get out of his position. So these people claim to be ethical, but they’re actually shortchanging one of the largest businesses in the world.”
This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.
