Jason Zeall, CFA

Writes about finance and world events

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

For OpenAI to make those numbers, with such high expectations and commitments, there’s huge incentive for them to make up those numbers.

[Hedgie @HedgieMarkets]

🦔 The AI bubble evidence is now overwhelming. OpenAI needs "trillions" for infrastructure while burning $115 billion through 2029 on $5 billion annual revenue. They're valued at $500 billion having never made a profit. Even their chairman admits "we're in a bubble and a lot of people will lose a lot of money."

The Circular Money Game
Nvidia invests $100 billion in OpenAI, who uses it to buy Nvidia chips. Meta borrows $26 billion for a data center the size of Manhattan. Companies that previously mined crypto are now AI infrastructure plays. This isn't investment, it's musical chairs with trillion-dollar price tags.

The Returns Don't Exist
MIT found 95% of organizations saw zero return on AI investments. Harvard and Stanford discovered employees use AI to create "workslop" that looks productive but accomplishes nothing, costing millions in lost productivity. OpenAI needs customers willing to pay $2,000 monthly subscriptions to justify valuations. For chatbots.

The Infrastructure Fantasy
Bain calculates AI companies need $2 trillion annual revenue by 2030 but will fall $800 billion short. The power requirements alone are impossible. Stargate's first data center in Texas would need multiple nuclear reactors we don't have. We're promising infrastructure that physically cannot exist.

China Just Showed the Risk
DeepSeek's release triggered a trillion-dollar selloff in one day. Nvidia dropped 17% when China proved they could build competitive AI for a fraction of the cost. Markets immediately rallied back, classic bubble behavior where bad news becomes buying opportunities until it doesn't.

My Take
When Sam Altman admits "we're missing something quite important" after hyping GPT-5, when 95% of companies see no ROI, when the financing becomes circular, and when insiders acknowledge the bubble while participating, we're at peak euphoria.

This makes dot-com look rational. At least websites could scale infinitely. AI needs physical infrastructure we cannot build, power grids that don't exist, and customers willing to pay thousands monthly for technology that currently generates "workslop."

The smartest money is already hedging. The rest are hoping to sell to a greater fool before the music stops.

Hedgie🤗

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

@KobeissiLetter He’s testing waters. It’ll go Supreme Court.

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

Very sad indeed.

What a turn around from the mid 18th century.

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

One photograph that captures the utter humiliation of Europe's lilliputian leaders. Like naughty schoolchildren being chastised at the headmaster's office. Pathetic!

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

@KobeissiLetter Symptoms that the US government is running out of money.

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

@DeItaone Tesla free cash flow could drop materially next few quarters when credits are no longer valuable

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

@zerohedge Because the listener buys it.
Just needs to be good enough for a short lived headline.

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

@marketplunger1 @chamath Well said

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

@acnewsitics So it’s not only AI LLM models that hallucinates, so does the President

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

@jsblokland When it’s a staple product that the whole population buys, and they see the price tag increasing every day.

The inflation CPI basket is meaningless for the people.

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

@jnordvig And the Jap gov debt levels exceed 200%. So every inch of yield that goes up is so much more expensive when they refinance.

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

@jnordvig Despite a reserve currency, the yields for US is so much higher across the board. Costs more for US to borrow than Greece or Portugal. Wild

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

Taxing the poor with Tariffs
Then giving tax cuts to the rich.

This is also asking for trouble.

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

@leijun When are your models coming to Hong Kong

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

@Barchart And Trump brought down egg prices via imports and not Tariffs

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

Unlike in Argentina when the starting point was already “bad”. Any improvement from bad, wasn’t a really high water mark. If this DOGE approach continues to be a chainsaw in the US, you’re not going to see the public react the same way as in Argentina.

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

The difference between Argentina’s chainsaw approach and the US-Elon approach, was when inflation was high, was things was just bad, even though there clearly was over spending in government. People could give the mandate and benefit of the doubt to the government.

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

But in the US, the backdrop is the economy is good and inflation was generally low, even with high government spending. So taking the chainsaw approach means you are bound to dramatically takeaway things that make people feel from “good” to “bad”.

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

@AdameMedia US will say good bye to many areas of high tech manufacturing

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

@elonmusk Hard for Zelensky to give a come back since he’s so reliant on Starlink

[Jason Zeall, CFA @jasonzeall]

@elonmusk @CommunityNotes And Meta will just copy this