Ed Zitron is one of the most prolific skeptic of the AI Boom. Having just reported OpenAI’s 2025 financial loss, he joins Jack to argue that the sheer size of the losses by the large language model (LLM) companies are unsustainable and the operational costs of training and running LLMs far exceeds the revenue customers are willing to pay. Ed also discusses Meta’s confusing AI strategy, the risk (and fall?) of the tokenmaxxing era, and Anthropic’s suspension of Fable 5. Recorded June 19, 2026. Pieces discussed in the interview: “Exclusive: OpenAI Losses Increased Nearly 8X in 2025, With Spending Hitting $34 Billion”: https://www.wheresyoured.at/exclusive-openai-financials/ “AI Is Slowing Down”: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ai-is-slowing-down/ “AI&#x27;s Brokenomics”: https://www.wheresyoured.at/brokenomics/ “OpenAI spending hit $34bn last year ahead of planned IPO”: https://www.ft.com/content/e15b0d7e-ff6b-4f16-ba7a-4068feddb828?syn-25a6b1a6=1 Follow Ed Zitron on X https://x.com/edzitron Follow Jack Farley on X https://x.com/jackfarley96Ed’s newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Follow Monetary Matters on: Apple Podcasts https://rb.gy/s5qfyh Spotify https://rb.gy/x56dx5 YouTube https://rb.gy/dpwxez

Ed Zitron: The AI Bubble is Bleeding Cash, Here Are The Receipts

Monetary Matters with Jack Farley

[SPEAKER_00] Got a very special conversation. I am speaking to one of the most prolific skeptics about AI. I'm joined today by Ed Zitron, author of Where's Your Ed at newsletter and the Better Offline podcast. Ed, welcome to Monetary Matters. Ed Zitron Thanks for having me. Ed, how about you start off and lay out your view of artificial intelligence and what the return on investment is for the enormous sums that are currently being spent? Ed Zitron So trillion

[SPEAKER_01] plus dollars in the fact we're still debating the ROI kind of says everything. I think if this was a real industry with the kind of TAM that they've been selling us on for the past four years, we wouldn't have that debate. There wouldn't be one. The fact that we're having it, the fact that you have people to this day in the year of our Lord 2026 saying, well, AI is real. I've never heard something real where someone has had to insist upon that. Economically speaking, the vast majority

[SPEAKER_01] of AI companies barely make more than a hundred million dollars a year in revenue. Anthropic and OpenAI account for, I think 89% of all the top. And on top of that, they're all horribly unprofitable. They lose billions of dollars. And the only way that they can reconcile those is by doing some, what I would call wacky accounting. And so in my reporting from earlier in the week, OpenAI spent

[SPEAKER_01] $134 billion to make $13.07 billion. And yeah, their net loss is just a little under $21 billion. They are of, they have, of course, with the FT given comments that suggests that they only lost $8 billion. I think that's laughable. I think that that was a booster key jingling.

Ed Zitron: The AI Bubble is Bleeding Cash, Here Are The Receipts

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

Ed Zitron: The AI Bubble is Bleeding Cash, Here Are The Receipts

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.