SourcesFilm 15
The Backstop
On YouTube as “Why the AI Bubble Won’t Pop Anytime Soon”
Corrections and updates
None so far.
Cold open
The Guarantee
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OpenAI told investors its “annualized revenue was approaching $50 billion at the end of September”
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OpenAI’s CFO walks back “backstop”
“I used the word ‘backstop’ and it muddied the point”; OpenAI is “committing to $1.4 trillion in infrastructure spending over eight years”
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“We do not have or want government guarantees for OpenAI datacenters”; “taxpayers should not bail out companies that make bad business decisions”
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David Sacks, the White House AI czar: “There will be no federal bailout for AI”
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“I think the government ends up as like the insurer of last resort” (recorded 17 Oct 2025, published 5 Nov 2025)
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The OpenAI agreement and its warrant for up to 160 million AMD shares, tied to GPU purchases
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Microsoft’s results imply OpenAI lost about $11.5 billion in a single quarter
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“We’re doing well more revenue than that”
Off the Books
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Hyperion in Richland Parish, Louisiana, with “Funds Managed by Blue Owl Capital”
“Total Development Cost: Approximately $27 billion”; Blue Owl funds hold 80%, Meta 20%; “a four-year initial term with extension options” and a residual value guarantee
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Beignet Investor LLC sold “$27 billion in bonds”, and the debt sits off Meta’s books
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“The Meta/Blue Owl deal broken down
Off-balance sheet gymnastics 24 years after Enron”; the 80/20 split meets the accounting consolidation tests
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$27.3 billion of bonds, rated A+ and priced roughly 225 basis points over Treasuries
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Complaint against Enron executives
“the nation’s largest natural gas and electric marketer”, and its special purpose entities kept off the balance sheet
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US life insurers hold “$807 billion in private credit and illiquid fixed income assets as of year-end 2025”, Apollo-backed Athene among them
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In its $54 billion asset-backed portfolio, “Data Centers 1%” (data at 31 Dec 2025, May 2026)
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The NAIC reviews the ratings on data-centre debt
“the creditworthiness of data center tenants, the exit clauses of leasing contracts”
The Queue
The Bill
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PJM serves “more than 67 million people” in “13 states and Washington, D.C.”
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Virginia regulators approve Dominion’s increase
$11.24 a month on the average residential bill in 2026, and a new class for customers of 25 MW and up
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BGE customers see a “$3.36/month decrease” for the 2026/27 delivery year
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Data centres have “mostly not yet” raised household bills, and "‘not yet’ does not mean ‘never’”
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“Data centers’ energy needs will not increase household electricity costs for American citizens”
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In Mason County, the developer Nscale offers to buy the homes next to its data centre
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“Randy and Marsha Frame have lived with the daily noise of the construction”
The Last Resort
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Economy statement to the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee
“Investment in artificial intelligence has been a significant driver of economic growth in recent quarters”
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5,315 million shares outstanding, against the government’s 433.3 million
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Proclamation 11002: a “25 percent ad valorem” duty on Nvidia’s H200 sales to China
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Executive Order 14318 on data-centre infrastructure
Support “which could include loans and loan guarantees, grants, tax incentives, and offtake agreements”
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A Treasury report drafted for the financial regulators
AI firms “pose significant risk to the entire system if financial conditions change”
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Bessent at a closed-door investor conference in New York: “I don’t see a systemic problem”
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The Treasury buys Argentine pesos and finalises a $20 billion currency swap
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“The initial equity funders in Stargate are SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX”
Handed Over
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Premium tax credits for guaranty association assessments, state by state
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Sarah Friar to staff: OpenAI “will be a public company in 2027”
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OpenAI raises a record $122 billion, with $3 billion from individual investors through banks
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Q2 fiscal 2027 results: “Revenue is expected to be $108.0 billion, plus or minus 2%”
Interviews and clips quoted
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Anat Ashkenazi, CFO of Alphabet: “We continue to expect our capex to increase significantly in 2027”
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“we expect to continue investing aggressively to support both our core business and emerging AI initiatives”
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Ed Yardeni, Yardeni Research: “air is coming out of the bubble without the bubble bursting”
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Sarah Friar, CFO of OpenAI: “the backstop, the guarantee that allows the financing to happen”
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Sarah Friar, asked whether she meant the federal government: “Exactly”
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“It doesn’t make sense for me to over index on the outcome at the bottom of the P&L while I can continue to fundraise”
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Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI: “Brad, if you wanna sell your shares, I’ll find you a buyer”
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Tech companies “are interested in not consolidating the debt on their balance sheet”
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Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, on whether it is a bubble: “I think it’s quite possible”
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“a lot of the companies end up going out of business and then the assets get distressed and then it’s a great opportunity to go buy more”
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Mark Zuckerberg: “we’re not at risk of going out of business or something like that”
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On the 2007 SIVs: “the entire SIV came back on balance sheet”
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Doug Ostrover, co-CEO of Blue Owl
“we need somebody standing beside them, guaranteeing that lease that we will get paid, hell or high water, over 20 years”
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Craig Packer, Blue Owl: “We’re not halting redemptions, just changing the form”
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Liz Hoffman, Semafor: “That doesn’t seem to me like a product that is working”
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Doug Ostrover: “you should assume there will be periods where you have to wait to get your money”
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Marc Lipschultz, co-CEO of Blue Owl
“We don’t want our investors in Blue Owl to own that risk … go buy a share of stock … in Nvidia if you want to own that risk”
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“we’ve levered the entirety of the retirement system of the U.S. to Nvidia. So far, that’s been good. It’s not always going to be good”
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“The increase in demand that we are expecting over the next decade is almost all due to data center growth”
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A central Ohio customer on her bill: “Double I would say in the last year”
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Tom Uttech, landowner in Saukville, Wisconsin: “we’ll fight it to the end”
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Jim Pyle, Mason County: “I had a whole lot of good neighbors already, and they’re gone”
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Marsha and Randy Frame, Mason County: “because it’s our home”
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Donald Trump at the White House
“A new American company that will invest $500 billion, at least, in AI infrastructure”
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Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary: “No, we don’t have to be in a bubble”
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Scott Bessent on Argentina: “I was able to use the balance sheet of the United States of America”
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“there isn’t sufficient capital in order to fuel what we believe is humanity’s biggest infrastructure build out in history”
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Ed Yardeni: “a band of brothers and sisters where they’re all going to bail each other out”
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Sam Altman on an OpenAI listing
“having retail investors have an opportunity to buy … that is probably the single most appealing thing about it to me”
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Jon Stewart: “They’ve actually made themselves too big to not fail because we can’t bail them out”