Michael Burry made $100M by betting against the housing market in 2008, now he’s set his sights on AI with these moves

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Michael Burry isn’t afraid to go against the herd.

The hedge fund manager famously bet against the U.S. housing market ahead of the 2008 crash — earning $100 million for himself and $725 million for his investors — a move later profiled in the hit movie “The Big Short” (1).

Now, he’s raising alarms again.

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“Sometimes, we see bubbles,” Burry wrote on X in late 2025. “Sometimes, there is something to do about it. Sometimes, the only winning move is not to play” (2).

Yet this time, he is playing.

In a 13F filing in early November, Burry’s firm, Scion Asset Management, revealed bearish positions against two of the market’s hottest names (3).

Scion disclosed put options on 1,0000,000 shares of Nvidia (NVDA) and 5,000,000 shares of Palantir (PLTR) as of Sept. 30.

A put option gives the holder the right — but not the obligation — to sell a stock at a set strike price before expiration, a strategy typically used when an investor expects the stock’s price to decline.

Nvidia has become the chipmaker of choice in the AI race — and a Wall Street idol. Its shares surged 41% as of late 2025 and an eye-popping 1,240% over the past five years, briefly reaching a $5-trillion valuation in October (4).

Palantir — a fast-rising data and software powerhouse — is another darling of the AI boom. And though share prices skyrocketed in 2025, they lost momentum recently (5).

While Scion’s filing doesn’t include the strike prices, expiration dates or premiums paid for those options contracts, the underlying shares tied to these put positions carried a combined notional value of nearly $1.1 billion.

Burry himself even leaned into the drama — pairing his “bubble” comments with a photo of Christian Bale portraying him in “The Big Short.”

Not everyone is impressed. Palantir CEO Alex Karp fired back on CNBC.

“The two companies he’s shorting are the ones making all the money, which is super weird,” Karp said (6). “The idea that chips and ontology is what you want to short is bats— crazy.”

Still, concerns about speculation in the AI trade are bubbling up elsewhere. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon recently warned that “a bunch of the capital that’s being deployed [in AI] will actually not produce any returns (7)”.

In fact, both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have recently warned of a potential market correction, with Goldman forecasting a possible 10%–20% drawdown in stocks sometime in the next 12 to 24 months (6).

More recently, Burry predicted that Google's parent company, Alphabet, would see its share price crater after the company announced it would issue a 100-year bond.

“Last time this happened was Motorola in 1997, which was the last year Motorola was considered a big deal,” he wrote (8).

Burry is also warning investors against taking too big a position on Bitcoin. The beleaguered cryptocurrency has been shedding $1 trillion in value over the last several months, and Burry believes it’s about to “death spiral” (9).

If you share his concerns, it may be time to consider how to protect your portfolio.

A safe haven shines again

When storm clouds gather over the markets, gold often steps back into the spotlight.

Long seen as the ultimate safe haven, gold isn’t tied to any single country, currency or economy. It can’t be created at will by central banks like fiat money, and in times of economic turmoil, market turbulence or geopolitical uncertainty, investors tend to pile in — driving up its value.

In fact, gold’s stellar performance in 2025 shows just how much investors rely on the metal as a safeguard when the markets are rocky.

Ray Dalio, founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, has repeatedly emphasized gold’s importance in a resilient portfolio.

“People don't have, typically, an adequate amount of gold in their portfolio,” he told CNBC in 2025 (10). “When bad times come, gold is a very effective diversifier.”

Gold IRAs allow investors to hold physical gold or gold-related assets within a retirement account, which combines the tax advantages of an IRA with the protective benefits of investing in gold, making it an attractive option for those looking to potentially hedge their retirement funds against economic uncertainties.

One way to invest in gold that also provides significant tax advantages is to open a gold IRA with the help of Thor Metals.

To learn more, you can get a free information guide that includes details on how to get up to $20,000 in free metals on qualifying purchases.

Read More: I’m almost 50 years old and don’t have retirement savings. Is it too late to catch up?

Read More: Non-millionaires can now invest in this $1B private real estate fund starting at just $10

A time-tested income play

Like stocks, real estate has its cycles, but it doesn’t rely on a booming market to generate returns.

Even during a downturn, high-quality, essential real estate can continue to produce passive income through rent. In other words, you don’t have to wait for prices to rise to see a payoff — the asset itself can work for you.

In fact, investing legend Warren Buffett has often pointed to real estate as a prime example of a productive, income-generating asset. In 2022, Buffett remarked that if you offered him “1% of all the apartment houses in the country” for $25 billion, he would “write you a check (11)”.

Why? Because no matter what’s happening in the economy, people still need a place to live and apartments can consistently produce rent money.

Of course, you don’t need billions — or even to buy an entire property outright — to benefit from real estate investing.

You can tap into this market by investing in shares of vacation homes or rental properties through Arrived.

Backed by world-class investors, including Jeff Bezos, Arrived allows you to invest in shares of vacation and rental properties, earning a passive income stream without the extra work that comes with being a landlord of your own rental property.

To get started, simply browse through their selection of vetted properties, each picked for their potential appreciation and income generation. Once you choose a property, you can start investing with as little as $100, potentially earning quarterly dividends.

Short-term rentals aren’t the only way to tap into this market without a major property investment. You can also invest in the long-term rentals market, which can offer more stable returns.

If diversifying into multifamily rentals appeals to you, you could consider investing with Lightstone DIRECT, a new investing platform from the Lightstone Group, one of the largest private real estate companies in the country with over 25,000 multifamily units in its portfolio.

Since they eliminate intermediaries — brokers and crowdfunding middlemen — accredited investors with a minimum investment of $100,000 can gain direct access to institutional-quality multifamily opportunities. This streamlined model can help reduce fees while enhancing transparency and control.

And with Lightstone DIRECT, you invest in single-asset multifamily deals alongside Lightstone — a true partner — as Lightstone puts at least 20% of its own capital into every offering. All of Lightstone’s investment opportunities undergo a rigorous, multi-stage review before being approved by Lightstone’s Principals, including Founder David Lichtenstein.

How it works is simple: Just sign up with your email, and you can schedule a call with a capital formation expert to assess your investment opportunities. From here, all you have to do is verify your details to begin investing.

Founded in 1986, Lightstone has a proven track record of delivering strong risk-adjusted returns across market cycles with a 27.6% historical net IRR and 2.54x historical net equity multiple on realized investments since 2004. All told, Lightstone has $12 billion in assets under management — including in industrial and commercial real estate.

As such, even if multifamily rentals don’t appeal to you, Lightstone could still serve you well as an investment vehicle for other real estate verticals.

Get started today with Lightstone DIRECT and invest alongside experienced professionals with skin in the game.

Getting a piece of the action

Whether Burry’s move resonates with you or you have your own market convictions, getting the right investment advice is no longer a matter of simply relying on a single advisor at your bank. You can get the benefit of advice from a team of former hedge fund analysts with Moby.

They offer expert research and recommendations to help you identify strong, long-term investments backed by In four years, and across almost 400 stock picks, their recommendations have beaten the S&P 500 by almost 12% on average. They also offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Moby’s team spends hundreds of hours sifting through financial news and data to provide you with stock and crypto reports delivered straight to you. Their research keeps you up-to-the-minute on market shifts, and can help you reduce the guesswork behind choosing stocks and ETFs.

Plus, their reports are easy to understand for beginners, so you can become a smarter investor in just five minutes.

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Article sources

We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.](https://moneywise.com/editorial-ethics-and-guidelines).*)

Vanity Fair (1); @michaeljburry (2), (8); The Securities and Exchange Commission (3); Nvidia Investor Relations (4); CNBC (5), (6), (7), (10), (11); Bloomberg (9)

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.