Michael Burry, the hedge fund manager immortalized in “The Big Short” for calling the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, just placed his first-ever short bet against Caterpillar. The heavy-machinery company has become one of the most unexpected beneficiaries of the AI infrastructure boom, and Burry thinks the party is over.
Burry revealed the position on June 30 through his Substack newsletter “Cassandra Unchained,” disclosing that he shorted CAT at $1,060.98 per share. The stock had rallied roughly 86% year-to-date and more than 150% over the trailing 12 months, powered largely by surging demand for Caterpillar’s power-generation equipment used in AI data centers.
The market listened. CAT shares dropped as much as 6.65% on July 1, retreating from record highs above $1,000.
Burry’s broader AI bubble thesis
Burry also disclosed short positions in Nvidia at $198.09, Tesla at $416.22, Applied Materials, and the iShares Semiconductor ETF. He’s framing the entire trade as a coordinated “AI bubble short,” arguing that valuations across the sector have detached from economic reality.
