Michael Burry Discusses Short Selling Logic: Why Tech Giants Are Not on the Target List

Renowned short seller Michael Burry recently outlined his boundaries for short selling strategies. He is currently shorting Oracle, but for tech giants whose business reach spans multiple fields, he adopts an opposite stance.

**The Fundamental Difference Between Diversified Empires and Single Bets**

Burry points out that the common characteristic of Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft is that their core value is not limited to just one track like artificial intelligence. Take Meta as an example: even if AI investments face setbacks, its monopoly position in social media and digital advertising remains a strong cash flow guarantee; Alphabet controls multiple business lines including search ecosystem, Android system, and autonomous driving, making it difficult for a decline in a single area to shake the overall fundamentals; Microsoft, as the absolute ruler of global office software, has stable revenue from enterprise SaaS.

**Risks Are Controllable, Decline Is Not Easy**

This is Burry’s core logic: shorting these companies essentially involves betting against their failure across multiple main businesses. The cost and risk of such bets are much higher than those for specialized companies. Even if the three giants face pressures like overcapacity, cost contraction, and asset write-downs, their dominance in their respective fields remains difficult to shake. Burry believes these three companies will not fall into a recession vortex because they possess sufficiently deep business moats and cash reserves to withstand cyclical shocks.

This reflects the savvy of professional short sellers: choosing opponents with clear failure paths, rather than trying to topple a fortress.