Burry is targeting one of AI’s biggest runners
Michael Burry is shorting Nebius Group after one of the strongest runs in the AI infrastructure trade.
In an August 6 post on his Cassandra Unchained Substack, Burry said he shorted Nebius at $211.77. He also disclosed a short position in Oracle at $144.63, calling both trades “a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.”
Burry did not disclose the size of either position.
The timing is direct. Nebius reports second-quarter earnings on August 12, giving the trade a near-term catalyst.
Nebius has delivered massive growth
Nebius is not a weak business on paper.
In the first quarter, revenue rose 684% year over year to $399 million. Annual recurring revenue reached $1.9 billion by the end of March, up more than 50% sequentially.
Adjusted EBITDA improved to a $130 million profit, compared with a $54 million loss a year earlier. On a GAAP basis, Nebius earned $621 million, reversing a $113.5 million loss in the prior-year period.
The stock has followed the numbers. Nebius shares are still up 137% this year, 204% over the past 12 months and nearly 950% over the last three years.
Even after pulling back to around $198.65, the stock remains only about 34% below its all-time high near $300.
The short case starts with debt and capex
Burry’s target appears to be the funding model behind the growth.
Nebius raised its 2026 capital spending guidance from $16 billion to $20 billion to a new range of $20 billion to $25 billion. Long-term debt more than doubled to $8.4 billion.
The company also reported an adjusted loss of $0.23 per share, though that was better than the expected loss of $0.71.
Nebius is spending heavily to build AI data centers and rent GPU capacity to customers. The bull case is that demand keeps filling that capacity. The bear case is that the company is borrowing aggressively into a market where long-term AI demand is still being priced as if growth will stay near perfect.
That is where Burry is pressing.
Burry is not shorting AI itself
The trade is more specific than a broad bet against artificial intelligence.
Burry has taken aim at companies whose valuations depend on massive infrastructure spending, heavy financing and years of future AI demand. His recent shorts in Nebius, Oracle, and previously Nvidia and Palantir, point to that pattern.
Nebius sits in the middle of the AI buildout. It is not a frontier model lab. It is not a hyperscaler with decades of cloud profits. It is an AI infrastructure company trying to scale fast enough to justify billions of dollars in capital spending.
That makes the stock sensitive to any weakness in backlog, margins, utilization, funding costs or customer demand.
Nvidia gives Nebius a powerful ally
There is still a strong case on the other side.
Nebius expanded its contracted AI infrastructure target to at least 4 gigawatts by year-end and strengthened liquidity with more than $6 billion in financing.
That included $2 billion from Nvidia through an equity investment and convertible senior notes.
Nvidia owns roughly 9% of Nebius, giving the chipmaker a direct interest in the company’s success. More independent AI infrastructure means more GPU demand and less dependence on a small group of hyperscale cloud customers.
That strategic support could help Nebius keep building even if public investors become more cautious.
August 12 becomes the test
Nebius earnings now carry more weight than a normal quarterly report.
The company has already shown it can grow. The question is whether the growth is becoming profitable enough to support a business planning more than $20 billion in annual capex while carrying $8.4 billion of long-term debt.
The market has been willing to reward AI infrastructure companies when revenue growth is clear and spending looks tied to immediate demand. It has been harsher on companies where capex rises faster than confidence in returns.
Burry is betting Nebius falls into the second group.
A high-growth AI stock meets a hard funding question
Nebius has been one of the strongest AI infrastructure stocks in the market. Its revenue growth, ARR expansion and Nvidia backing explain why the stock ran so far.
Burry’s short puts a different number at the center of the story: $20 billion to $25 billion in planned capex.
The August 12 earnings report will show whether Nebius can defend that spending curve or whether one of AI’s biggest winners has become too stretched.
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