Technology

tldr; They used "special-purpose vehicle" to hide the debt. Accounting's version of "anal doesn't count, silly".

Oh boy I can't wait to see the future of every person under 65 and with a net worth below $100 million get basically vaporized from space. I can't wait to be the bailout source for this... Although I don't think there's enough money in existence to bail this one out.

I've said it before, I'll say it again...

The country which will win the AI race is the one who wastes the least amount of money on AI infrastructure.

The US will be the biggest loser in this "competition".

This shit led to the Great Depression… I guess it’ll be a Greater Depression, just on figures alone.

I genuinely am having a hard time believing this because the image looks like it was generated... The kind of reality the .01% has shoved us into.

This is why they want to get into your 401(k)s & pension funds. Don't let them.

Would be interesting to include anthropic, openai etc in this list

Makes sense. Oligopolies collude. No news there.

I don't know why, but I read this as "Five Guys" and thought holy shit I didn't realize a burger company could be so broke. No wonder their prices are so high!

A bigger factor in AI fraud economy, is the circular fake assets and fake revenue. $1T valuations in top 2 LLM providers implies $50B-$100B eventual recurring profits with little to no reinvestment. $1.75T SpaceX valuation was based entirely on fraud of at least 5x more expensive space data centers than earth and supposed 90% of value of company is based on Grok enterprise TAM. IPO was boosted with fake Anthropic paper lease where they were renting gpus for 5x the cost, and over 2x the list price of on demand rates from Nebius/coreweave, but with instant cancel clauses, and "first 2 months free" scam. 11th hour similar Google deal (who owns 6%+ of spacex) further amplified the SpaceX fraud IPO.

The main circular fraud though, is most of the companies (Nvidia not mentioned) in article put an inflated asset on their balance sheet, while trading revenue credits for those investments. Article's "footnote debt" is largely to serve those revenue credits.

I am actually thinking ask of these companies imploding would be good for the human race.

Imagine a solid hard reset on the internet? Yes please.

Will this fuck me over yes, but that will be temporary

The AI bubble will pop within the next couple of months. It's pretty interesting, I wonder if we've ever seen an economic bubble so clearly before it comes to an end.

Five companies owe more money than their balance sheets admit. A Nikkei analysis of financial footnotes at Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle found $1.65 trillion in off-balance-sheet obligations tied to AI infrastructure — binding, must-pay commitments parked in the fine print

Good thing I don't invest in these big names, not only because of overvaluation but also because of corruption. My mom told me to be careful with investing because companies go bankrupt but i kinda dismissed her concerns because I am thinking that the days of Enron accounting magic is over. But it looks like it's still alive and well. Although I doubt executives will be held accountable.

A Nikkei analysis of financial footnotes at Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle found $1.65 trillion in off-balance-sheet obligations tied to AI infrastructure — binding, must-pay commitments parked in the fine print.

...a company creates or partners with a separate legal entity — a special-purpose vehicle (SPV) — that borrows the money and owns the assets. The tech company signs long-term leases or capacity contracts but doesn't record the SPV's debt on its own books.

I'm not a finance wiz but would that mean these 5 companies are carrying around 3 trillion total debt? My bank won't even let me owe them 20 bucks without penalties.