The Zhitong Finance App learned that Citadel (Citadel) founder and CEO Ken Griffin (Ken Griffin) clearly stated at the “Global Market Future Conference” in New York on Tuesday that investors are “almost certainly” in the midst of an artificial intelligence bubble. The billionaire, who is at the helm of hedge funds and market making, directly compared the current AI boom to the internet bubble at the turn of the century. At the same time, he pointed out the most confusing aspect of the bubble narrative with the phrase “I really wish I had Amazon shares in my hands at the time”: people in it often see irrationality, but they are not necessarily willing to leave the market too early.
Griffin's warning is not an isolated statement. According to the official minutes of the Citadel Securities conference, in this conversation, he characterized AI's “recent excessive prosperity” as “similar to the Internet age,” and at the same time issued a similar warning about tokenization (tokenization), believing that it could “lead to excessive speculation rather than meaningful market efficiency.”
As early as September, Griffin made a judgment: “The present moment clearly has echoes of an internet bubble.” From “echo” in September to “almost certain” in November, Griffin's characterization of AI pricing completed an upgrade from suggestion to confirmation in just two months.
What's more significant is the dramatic swing in Griffin's own position. In Davos at the beginning of this year, he had devalued AI as “garbage” (garbage); by May, he confessed at Stanford Business School that he was “quite depressed” when he came home one Friday because after seeing with his own eyes what AI could do, he realized the severe impact it would have on society. From “garbage” to “frustration” to today's “bubble,” Griffin's cognitive trajectory reflects Wall Street's complex mentality on AI: the reality of technological change and the fictitious nature of asset prices are accepted at the same time.
On the other side of the bubble debate, Bridgewater Fund founder Ray Dalio gave a more detailed split. Dario also acknowledged that US technology stocks are overvalued and that the AI boom is characterized by a bubble, but he stressed that “key conditions to break the bubble” have not yet arisen — monetary policy has not been suddenly tightened, and the market is not under pressure to sell assets, so “now is not the time to withdraw from AI-related assets.” In other words, Griffin said “this is a bubble,” and Dario said, “The bubble could be bigger.” The two are not contradictory, but they point to very different operational implications.
There is also an intriguing tension between Griffin's words and actions. Citadel reduced its Palantir holdings by about 48% in the second quarter, and significantly increased its holdings of other AI-related targets during the same period; in December, Citadel launched a new AI research tool for stock investors, and its stock selection team's adoption rate of this tool is close to full coverage. While disclosing the warning bubble and actively deploying AI tools on the business side, this attitude of “talking about a bubble and using AI” is exactly the most honest picture of Wall Street today: no one denies that pricing is irrational, yet no one wants to leave the market early before the end comes.
Citadel's flagship Wellington Fund has a return of 10.2% for the full year of 2025, with a long-term annualized net return of about 19% since its establishment in 1990. This track record gives weight to Griffin's speech, but it also reminds readers that a person who manages one of the most profitable hedge funds in history said “bubble,” and the information content was not the same as a bystander who said “bubble.” When Griffin said “I hope to keep Amazon stock,” what he really conveyed was probably not fear of the bubble, but awe of the duration of the bubble.