Peter Thiel sells off all Nvidia stock, stirring bubble fears
147 comments
·November 16, 2025markus_zhang
mightyham
I agree that it's very difficult to fully understand what his real positions are, and interestingly I think he clearly wants that to be the case. Peter Thiel is interested in and has actually written extensively about Straussianism which is an intellectual movement obsessed with analyzing esoteric meanings in philosophical literature.
adabyron
What's interesting is that Thiel added MSFT but the Gates Foundation just reduced it by almost 2/3 and it was their biggest holding - https://hedgefollow.com/funds/Gates+Foundation+Trust
drumhead
If there is a bubble then the hyperscalers with dominant market shares and big cashflows are most likely to survive if it bursts. Google, MSFT and Amazon. Oracle are on very shaky ground. Their bonds are selling at a discount to par, even though interest rates are dropping, and their debt to equity ratio is nearing 400%. AI is an existential bet for them, but not so much for the others.
hactually
I'd say he's wanting to lock in those gains. Diamond hands are different when you're up 100s of millions on a single stock.
dmix
Yeah everyone wants a conspiracy when the obvious signal is that he already made insane amounts of money off the stock spiking so high and he wants to diversify it on other stuff instead of continuing to gamble on a big one. Which is also what the article says he is doing.
PaulRobinson
It doesn't take a genius to work out somebody who bought low might want to sell high.
The newsworthy aspect to this is that the AI hype cycle is saying that right now, today, Nvidia is cheap. If AI is going to capture the entire economy, but it relies on Nvidia hardware, the current valuation is pennies on the dollar of what it will be one day.
Except, you know, that's all a lie. And Thiel peddled it for a while, and is friends with Musk, and connected to many others in the hype cycle besides, and now he's showing his hand that he knows its a lie.
drumhead
First it was Softbank and now its Thiel. Major sales coming from two of the ultimate tech insiders is probably a very good sell signal. Whether or not its the top is another question. Markets as we know can go higher longer than we think, Michael Burry shut down his hedge fund because he may have started shorting too soon.
One of the funds that Meta were working with to finance their spending on AI, Blue Owl, had to stop redemptions on of their private credit funds merging it with another one of their bigger funds, leaving holders facing a 20% haircut. There also seem to be emerging liquidity issues with banks. The money for the AI gravy train might be running out.
rsanek
didn't softbank sell only to invest more into other ai investments?
drumhead
Yes, but whether they will remains to be seen. They needed a reason to sell out without it looking like they were selling out at the top.
sota_pop
I thought I read specifically with the intention of putting it into OpenAI directly, but yes they said they wanted to “pursue other ventures in the area of AI”.
aestetix
It's because he knows about the Antichrist.
garspin
Making $$$ & keeping them are 2 different skills.
He's demonstrated the former 16B times, now he's demonstrating the latter.
The big downside risk I see for Nvidia is a garage startup inventing a more efficient AI algo.... that only needs 20W to run.
srameshc
Could it all be triggered by the study : Gartner Says Agentic AI Supply Exceeds Demand, Market Correction Looms ?
https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-10-0...
marcyb5st
interesting. For me charts and CSS are broken though, so I couldn't really see figures
amelius
It would make sense if he used to money to buy TSMC or ASML instead.
andsoitis
MSFT and AAPL seem like better ways to diversify your money away from chips, while keeping it in technology.
drumhead
APPL is the best bet as it doesnt have any exposure to AI. MSFT has spent a truckload of money on datacentres, if AI doesnt deliver they're going to face a huge drag on earnings because of the overinvestment.
bgwalter
Assuming he is correct (I think he is) and Nvidia goes down sharply, it will take AMD, Intel etc. with it. Usually the equipment makers and fabs go down with them, many times even at a higher percentage.
mmaunder
Investor sentiment and fundamentals are distant relatives. If fear takes hold and enters a spiral, revenue growth and fundamentals go out the window.
sota_pop
100% is a serious move. Taken alone, I might not think much, but given the SoftBank exit recently, and the interesting observation from Michael Burry, this does not bode well for NVDA in the short/mid term.
Burry’s critique was actually refreshingly novel compared to the “it’s a bubble lmao” type of comments I normally see.
Can anyone expand on the validity of his “hardware depreciation” thesis?
I’ve always understood typical corporate hardware cycle to be ~3 years. I don’t run it that hot, but my 3080 is still running strong with no signs of performance issues (except the fact that 10GB is not much vram these days). Plus doesn’t everyone just buy the new generation every single year?
buybuybuy
Should we all buy stock in Nvidia now? It’s not like Peter Thiel is Warren Buffet or anything. And Warren Buffett is buying Alphabet.
TheAlchemist
Warren Buffett is buying Alphabet out of neceessity - he already sold most of what he could sell and has way too much cash on hand - he just need to buy 'something' - Alphabet seems like the least overvalued big stock out there.
drumhead
Berkshire is sitting on nearly $350 billion in cash. One of the ratio's that Buffet uses to measure overvaluation, Wilshire 2000 Market Cap as a % of GDP is at an all time, 220%. Its usually a good indicator of a market top. He's making a few small investments, but he's just waiting until there's more of sell off before heading back in. He's under no pressure to buy anything.
scarmig
Is he required to buy stock? AFAIK he could just as well hold cash or bonds, and if he believes a bubble pop is imminent (within the next couple months), that would be a responsible move.
Deegy
Not required of course. This move to finally move some of his cash horde into equities could be a result of the US governments recent announcement that they're ending their quantitative tightening policy. This likely signals a move back to a period of quantitative easing which could cause assets to continue to inflate while the value of the dollar continues to erode.
Basically he could just be trying to protect the value of his dollars by putting them into a very stable company that also has exposure to the upside of AI.
ncruces
Whose cash or bonds? USD?
pojzon
Thing is, people dont know what will happen if this bubble bursts.
Its so big that it could take with it whole global market.
There is no safe asset you can turn into in such a case, digital money would literally mean nothing when whole financial system collapses.
surgical_fire
Yes, you should. Every grift needs bagholders.
redwood
Having heartburn after making a $100M bet on hucksters?
https://www.wsj.com/tech/peter-thiel-backed-startup-secures-...
djmips
Have any juicy articles to back up your unsubstantiated claim?
I think people like Peter Thiel has the insider view of the whole sector, so I would not discount this just because I don’t align with him on political stuffs.
But again we never know his real positions.