Burry says the market’s cooling on AI spend-happy Big Tech

The market has entered its “show me the receipts” era

Michael Burry hopped on X and gave Wall Street a blunt little verdict: the market has voted, and it’s not feeling the companies throwing the biggest piles of money at AI right now. In his telling, investors are increasingly treating giant AI capex plans like a dinner tab nobody wants to split.

Big spenders, less sparkle

Burry shared a Bloomberg chart showing Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle all lagging since the start of June even as they keep leaning hard into AI investment. Alphabet looked especially rough in the comparison, despite sitting near the top of the projected capex pile. Apple, meanwhile, has been doing the opposite trick: less spending, better stock action. Investors love a good plot twist.

Valuation multiples are doing the talking

This isn’t just about share prices. Burry also pointed to forward P/E multiples for Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta sliding from their recent highs. Translation: the market is rethinking how much it should pay for the AI story if the near-term payoff keeps looking like a maybe-later situation.

• Less faith in blank-check AI spending
• More love for capital discipline
• A cooler vibe around the Magnificent Seven trade

The broader backdrop shows it too: the Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF is down 3.37% this year, while QQQ is up 11.60%. That’s not exactly a standing ovation.

Big picture

None of this means AI is suddenly dead. It just means investors are moving from “build it and they will come” to “cool story, but where’s the margin expansion?” And in markets, that’s often the difference between a hero stock and a very expensive science project.