Michael Burry just gave his AI crash call an expiry date

Monday night, every share short vanished

Michael Burry covered every common-stock short in his book on Monday, 28 September: Micron, Nebius, Caterpillar, CoreWeave, Nvidia, Palantir, Oracle and the iShares Semiconductor ETF ¹⁴. "As of today, put options completely replaced my short positions," he wrote on Substack ¹². Micron and Nebius were rebuilt as puts at the June expiry, Nvidia, Palantir and the chip ETF as September 2027 puts, and Caterpillar and Oracle as December 2027 paper, Caterpillar struck near $400 ¹²⁷.

MetLife is a brand-new short, in LEAP puts struck in the $70s and running out several years ¹⁷. Scion is deregistered, so the whole book is one man publishing to 336,000-plus subscribers ⁶⁸.

Six weeks from first short to full re-arm

On 7 August he shorted Nebius stock at $211.77, directly, precisely because puts carried what he described as exorbitant prices ³. Through August, his base case for the AI bubble was 2028 ⁴. On 22 September he added to the share shorts "in some size" ⁵. Monday brought the reversal: "Fundamentally, I am moving timelines up. As such, I want more leverage in my short positions" ².

He called puts "relatively cheap due to exceptionally tight volatility measures such as the VIX" and said part of the switch was tax-loss harvesting, which is what closing the share shorts accomplishes ¹². CoreWeave he covered and has not replaced: no puts at a price he would pay ¹⁷.

The expiry dates are the forecast

A share short bleeds borrow fees and has no deadline; a put is prepaid and dies on a printed date. Rebuilt as June and September 2027 paper, "sooner than later" becomes testable: if the AI buildout funds through those expiries, dealers keep the premium and the positions expire worthless.

What he expects to break it is an Ares Management report he cited↗, which warns of "a season in which AI revenue disappoints the capital expenditure underwriting it" and notes that "the legal documents contemplate that decision" once boards conclude the highest-conviction bet has shifted ². The same post↗ says his research works the thesis "from the bottoms-up insurance side"; the one new name in the book is an insurer ⁶.

The other side is still crowding the trade

Micron has gained 276% this year and Nebius 175%, per Stocktwits, and retail sentiment on both read bullish with high message volume on a day Micron fell 2.61% ¹. The Nasdaq Composite closed at a record last week ². Nebius raised compute prices effective 1 October after a quarter of $582 million in revenue, up 454%, against $5.7 billion of capital spending ³. Anthropic's reported IPO prospectus↗ shows the fuel: $4.6 billion of revenue, a $42 billion net loss, $518 billion of future infrastructure commitments ⁷.

Wednesday grades nothing yet

Micron reports fiscal fourth-quarter results on 30 September↗, inside the window his June 2027 puts frame ⁹. But that print grades the quarter, not the call. If nothing breaks by the expiries, the premium is gone and the bubble warning stands unproven until the next ticket.