Nebius: When a Legendary Short Seller and Goldman Sachs Collide Over One AI Stock

Michael Burry shorts Nebius at $211.77 while Goldman raises stake to 7.2%, as revenue soars 684% but debt and capex raise red flags.

The gap between Wall Street's most bearish and most bullish views of Nebius Group can be measured in a single trade. Michael Burry, the investor who bet against subprime mortgages in 2008, has publicly disclosed a short position in the AI cloud company at $211.77 per share. Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, has been quietly building its stake — and now holds a 7.2 percent passive interest in the company as of June 30, 2026. Both institutions are looking at the same financials. They have reached opposite conclusions.

The Growth Story That Divides the Market

What makes Nebius so contentious is the sheer scale of its ambition. The company posted first-quarter revenue of $399 million, a 684 percent year-over-year surge, and claims an annualized recurring revenue run rate of $1.9 billion. Management has guided toward a year-end ARR target of $7 billion to $9 billion and says more than half of that corridor is already locked in under contract.

The most notable of those agreements came in mid-July, when Nebius signed a multi-year deal worth over $1 billion through 2029 with Reflection AI, a startup backed by Nvidia. That same period saw the company launch its Vera Rubin computing rack at its Finnish data center and secure a first secured credit facility of roughly $775 million, priced at SOFR plus 250 basis points and maturing in October 2030.

None of that impresses Burry. In a Substack post last Wednesday, the Scion Asset Management founder framed his short as "shooting fish in a barrel," pointing to companies with massive long-term obligations and comparatively modest revenue. His math is straightforward: Nebius has doubled its long-term debt to $8.4 billion while its investment budget for 2026 has climbed to between $20 billion and $25 billion — a figure that dwarfs the roughly $576 million to $583 million analysts expect for the second quarter, due out before the market opens on August 12.

Goldman's Counter-Bet

Goldman Sachs sees the same numbers and arrives at a different verdict. The bank, which has advised Nebius since 2024 and helped structure the recent $775 million debt facility, raised its passive stake to 7.2 percent at the end of June. An institution with that level of involvement rarely increases its position without conviction, and the timing suggests Goldman views the recent pullback as an entry point rather than a warning sign.

The stock's trajectory offers ammunition to both camps. Nebius is up 121.17 percent since the start of the year, yet sits 37.72 percent below its June high. The 30-day decline of 14.18 percent and Friday's close of €162.56, down 1.49 percent on the day, suggest Burry's critique has found an audience. With a market capitalization of €48.10 billion, the company remains a heavyweight in the AI infrastructure space despite the drawdown.

Insider Sales and Regulatory Friction

Adding nuance to the picture are insider transactions that have drawn attention. Chairman John Wilson Boynton IV sold 6,958 Class A shares worth approximately $1.4 million in mid-July under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, following an earlier sale of 5,812 shares on June 15. The automated nature of these sales limits their signal value, though Boynton's remaining direct holdings — worth roughly $96.6 million — suggest his commitment to the company remains substantial.

Regulatory headwinds have also emerged. A one-year moratorium on new large-scale data centers in New York state complicates expansion plans, though press reports suggest companies are more likely to shift to friendlier jurisdictions than to slow their buildouts. More concerning for the sector was recent news that Meta plans to sell excess AI computing capacity, a report that knocked Nebius and rival CoreWeave down 12 to 15 percent at times — a reminder of how sensitive the market has become to any signal about AI demand.

The August 12 Verdict

The immediate test comes Wednesday, when Nebius reports second-quarter results before the bell. The operational margin will be the key metric — it must demonstrate that the company can carry its enormous investment burden without collapsing. A shareholder meeting on August 25, where the capital structure is expected to be reorganized, will provide a further read on management's strategy.

Burry is betting that the gap between Nebius's revenue and its capital requirements proves unsustainable. Goldman is betting that the company's contracted backlog — including the Reflection AI deal and the Finnish data center's transition from testing to commercial operation — will translate into cash-generative revenue. The earnings report will not settle the argument definitively, but it will show which side has the stronger hand.