Weekly Lounge: Rogan vs Theo Von, Thiel Dumps NVDA, Musk vs Bezos in Space

**John Johnston** (0:00)
The argument essentially boils down to the belief that AIs needs are eventually going to grow so great that we need to move to outer space. It isn't clear what's closer to being real, moon bases or super intelligent AI, but the two seem to be converging in an era of investor enthusiasm that has some worried we are in an AI bubble. Hi everyone, JJ here. Welcome back to The John Johnston Lounge. So today, we've got more on AI Bubble Watch. I've been developing this series about the possible AI bubble, which I do think there is, and we will have a look at the major headlines on that, that have just happened over the past few days, including this main one about Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, now want to build AI data centers in space. Is this at the top of the bubble? Well, is this the kind of thing that you see? I'm not saying we are at the top of the bubble, and there's evidence that we may not be. I'll show you some of the headlines, but we will come back to this story as the main story. This is the Wall Street Journal here. This article, now Tech Moguls want to build data centers in outer space. Energy constraints in the artificial intelligence race are causing tech companies to think out of this world. Well, I don't think that's the only reason. I mean, they're always thinking about Space Elon Musk wants to build a colony on Mars. And they're both building rockets. So it's not like they haven't thought about this before. So they seem to think this is the right moment to get more into it or some sort of competing race to do this. Well, there's a lot of development, a lot of hype about the AI. And so here are some other headlines just in the past few days that's directly related because Jeff Bezos has had this success. You might have seen the rocket successfully land a booster like SpaceX has. So there is this race developing between them. There's a fake fight, the tech billionaires compete against each other, but they really do have the same goal, similar amounts of wealth and what they're doing. So Blue Origin's New Glenn Rocket launches NASA's Mars mission.
Yesterday, it was a few days ago now, Blue Origin launched its New Glenn Rocket from Cape Canaveral, carrying NASA's Escapade and landed the first stage on recovery. And then we have this and other AI news or AI data center news. Google plans $40 billion Texas data center investment amid AI boom. So all of these big tech companies building out their AI. There's a lot of CAPEX, capital expenditure going into this and questions have been asked. Investor Michael Burry has posted about this saying that it actually is a big problem in relation to this. I won't get into that in this video. And then we have this Peter Thiel exits Nvidia stake amid AI market volatility. Now, I have mentioned this a few times in videos that I noticed that Peter Thiel mentioned, I think it was at the All In, that podcast, All In Summit, and Peter Thiel was there. And it was a few months ago now, maybe even six months ago. And he said it felt like 1999, he actually said that when they were asking him about AI investment, right? And so now this news comes out. On November 16th, 2025, Peter Thiel's 13F revealed a full exit from Nvidia despite the AI chip maker recently surpassing a $5 trillion valuation. Well, despite, I mean, that's a huge amount, right? Thiel has warned that AI's hype cycle runs far ahead of its real economics, which is the key point, aligning with his Q3 portfolio shake up. As observers say, he is realizing gains and redeploying capital into three mega cap names. Well, he has investments in a lot of things, right? And emerging companies, start up companies being venture capital. Now, the exit has prompted investor forums on November 16th to show renewed debate among market participants about an AI bubble. Economists say experts outline three scenarios for an AI bubble and warn a market correction is likely when household investors realize overvaluation. Well, that's saying with household investors, retail investors, when they get scared out, that's when it will collapse, that's what they're suggesting. But also, to balance things out here, we have Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway reveals a $4 billion stake in Google parent sells more Apple. So they have been selling down Apple in recent quarters, sort of repeatedly. It was such a massive stake they had in Apple. But Warren Buffett, and I've seen him say this in interviews in years gone by, he said about Google that he missed the boat on Google. And they knew, Berkshire Hathaway knew that it was valuable or that it was going well. Because early on, they used Google ads and they saw the effectiveness. So he got it, but he didn't seem to not get it at the right valuation that he wanted. And this was years ago, but now they're jumping in. And if this is anything to go by, I mean, they jumped into Apple famously. And what is it, a three or four bagger that it's gone up since Buffett invested in it after Steve Jobs died and Tim Cook took over. And so that's done very well. So balancing things out, is it a bubble? Or at what stage is it if Warren Buffett or his investors, he's not the only investor there, are now jumping into Google finally. And at this point when the AI bubble looks to be inflating, is it a big mistake by them or are they thinking long term? So this was in the last quarter because the 13F filings come out and we see last quarter. So it's old news already. And if you look at the Google stock price, it's kind of gone up since then. However, this says in a filing on Friday, Berkshire Hathaway revealed a roughly $4.3 billion stake. Now I have to jump in there again and say, just to remind you, that's not actually a lot for Berkshire Hathaway. If you look at their investments, it's quite big, but it's not a massive, massive investment. I mean, they might build it up over time. I dare say once they've made this decision, if the bubble started to deflate, they would jump in and buy more. I would say it's just a vote of confidence for Google. Warren Buffett has historically avoided most technology companies, it says, sticking to his circle of competence and has publicly lamented missed opportunities to invest in Alphabet in recent years. Yes, I mean, it isn't a circle of competence. He said that, he said Apple was, because it was a consumer electronics company, understands that. And he does understand Google, it seems, apart from this AI thing. But that's only one part of Google, right? But it does come at a time with Google where people are saying, is it the innovator's dilemma where they have to destroy their incredible search business, one of the best businesses in history, really, because of AI? Is that part of it too? Which I'm not sure that he would understand. He said he doesn't understand that kind of thing. And so maybe it's somebody else there at the company that's taking over because he is retiring as CEO, right? And we have this as well. He's been right about AI for 40 years. Now, he thinks everyone is wrong. So I think this is important in terms of the bubble. Jan LeCun invented many fundamental components of modern AI. Now, he's convinced most of his field have been led astray by the siren song of large language models. So this is really important considering it's ChatGBT OpenAI that is really the market leader here. Microsoft's involved in that. And so Jan LeCun, who has been a key player in this, he really has, and he has been at META recently, and he is now questioning whether it's going to get there with these AI models. And also OpenAI is becoming too big to fail. Sam Altman's ability to intertwine the startup throughout major tech players puts it at the nexus of a vital part of the US economy.