Burry calls for crash to block OpenAI, Anthropic IPOs, nods to Skynet joke

According to Michael Burry, markets need to fall sharply to prevent OpenAI and Anthropic from going public. The "Big Short" investor also indicated he shared a follower's jest that a crash would stop a Skynet IPO.

A Reuters report on Anthropic's prospectus indicates the firm may target a valuation exceeding $2 trillion. OpenAI has postponed its own IPO to 2027.

Michael Burry Escalates His Attack on the OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs

In a post on X, Burry presented a market crash as something beneficial for society.

"For the benefit of humanity, the markets should tank hard and prevent the OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs."

— Michael Burry

Elsewhere in the discussion, a commenter suggested both laboratories are unprofitable and might only endure as state-owned assets. Burry responded that these firms will consume and then annihilate trillions of dollars, calling that the smallest part of the harm.

These are companies that are going suck up and then destrop TRILLIONS of dollars of capital, and that will be the least of the damage they do.

— Cassandra Unchained (@michaeljburry) September 29, 2026

A different user proposed crashing the market to prevent a Skynet IPO. Burry stated his perspective was similar.

This alludes to the artificial intelligence from the Terminator series, which triggers a nuclear attack on humans, serving as a cultural symbol for uncontrolled AI.

Along those lines.

— Cassandra Unchained (@michaeljburry) September 29, 2026

A user queried Grok, xAI's chatbot, about Burry's position, and it characterized a dot-com-like bubble based on loss-making large language models that do not achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI). Burry publicly endorsed and applauded that response.

Why the Timing Matters

Per CNBC, Anthropic's prospectus reports a net loss of $42 billion for 2025 and $518 billion in planned cloud and infrastructure commitments. BeInCrypto's analysis of the IPO puts the operating loss at about $8.06 billion.

OpenAI submitted a confidential filing in June. However, CEO Sam Altman said this year is not suitable for a listing, and the company now targets 2027.

Burry's latest post came after a September 14 message where he described the labs' slowdown calls as self-serving. On Monday, he also moved from short positions to puts on a number of AI-related stocks.

Reuters had reported earlier that Anthropic's IPO will likely occur after the November US midterm elections. In the meantime, the market can consider the prospectus data compared with Burry's opinion.