Michael Burry took a swipe at some of the dot-com boom’s biggest winners, prompting a cheeky response from Mark Cuban.
The investor of “The Big Short” fame argued on X that stock prices became detached from fundamentals between the 1998 collapse of Long-Term Capital Management and the dot-com crash in March 2000.
“Complete idiots made permanent fortunes during that span,” Burry wrote on Saturday. “We still hear from one of them regularly.”
He did not name anyone, but Cuban — one of the best-known billionaires minted during the dot-com boom — appeared happy to play along.
“Complete idiots,” Cuban replied, adding a crying laughter emoji. He also quoted one of his own posts from 2025, listing 13 patent applications that lawyers for Broadcast.com had considered filing before Yahoo acquired the internet radio company.
Cuban sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in stock in 1999, making him one of the dot-com era’s most prominent winners.
The potential patents covered ideas including geographic identification of internet-connected devices, hybrid networks, reverse auctions, audio advertising, streaming authentication, and automated content promotion.
Burry’s broader message was one he has frequently shared in recent months — that investors are ignoring inflated valuations in favor of AI hype and could be caught out in the future.
In a separate exchange the day before, Burry asked: “Am I the last bear?”
“Everyone is a genius in a bull market,” Cuban responded, repeating one of his favorite sayings about how soaring asset prices can make almost every investor look shrewd.
Everyone is a genius in a bull market
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) August 9, 2026
The exchanges come after both men raised concerns about the artificial-intelligence buildout.
Burry has warned that Big Tech is overspending on microchips and data centers that could quickly become obsolete.
Cuban has similarly argued that efficiency gains could leave some AI infrastructure redundant, joking that many data centers might eventually be converted into pickleball courts.
