Michael Burry

Burry studied at UCLA, entered Vanderbilt’s medical school in 1993 and earned his MD in 1997 before pursuing residency training at Stanford.⁠[1][2][3]

During residency he ran an investment website and wrote for MSN Money. He left medicine and founded Scion Capital in 2000; Gotham Capital and White Mountain Insurance subsequently invested in its management company.⁠[3][2]

In his 2011 account, mortgage disclosures led Burry to conclude that loose lending was unsustainable. He agreed initial trades with Deutsche Bank in May 2005 and executed them in early June, buying credit default swaps on subordinated subprime mortgage securities.⁠[1]

Burry recalled that valuation and redemption pressure forced sales of some corporate-credit shorts in 2006; retained mortgage positions began paying off in 2007. Vanderbilt later reported a 489.34% ultimate fund return and $750 million returned to investors; that distribution is not a net-profit figure.⁠[1][2]

Burry closed Scion Capital in 2008 and focused mainly on personal investments for several years.⁠[2]

At Vanderbilt, Burry publicly discussed his housing research and short positions, including regulation, securitization, counterparties and investor pressure. He emphasized independent analysis in career and investment decisions.⁠[3][1]

Burry founded Scion Asset Management in September 2013.⁠[2]

Adam McKay’s 2015 film The Big Short adapted Michael Lewis’s 2010 book. Christian Bale portrayed Michael Burry, bringing his mortgage trade to a wider audience.⁠[4]

On May 24, 2022, Burry likened market conditions to watching a plane crash in a subsequently deleted tweet. Investing.com reported the remark the next day amid stock declines and weaker US new-home sales.⁠[5]

Burry posted the single word “Sell” on January 31, 2023, then acknowledged on March 30 that the call had been wrong. Kitco reported first-quarter gains of approximately 5.5% for the S&P 500 and 14.8% for the Nasdaq Composite.⁠[6][7]

ReutersReutersReuters is an international news agency founded in London in 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter and is now the news business of Thomson Reuters. It provides text, photo, video, and graphics coverage to media and institutional clients and distributes it through channels such as Reuters Connect.Open the full entry later reported that Burry closed Scion Asset Management in late 2025 and shared research through the paid Substack newsletter Cassandra Unchained. In a December 7 note, he said his 2023 sell message reflected bank concerns and that he had shifted toward expecting a quick resolution by March.⁠[8][7]

On September 16, Reuters reported that Burry would become a senior adviser at Minerva Investment Management and work with Unicus founder and CEO Lakshmi Ganapathi on a short-biased fund. Its launch was then expected within a month.⁠[8]

The public preview of Burry’s September 28 newsletter said he was advancing his timelines. Business Insider reported the next day that he had moved his base case for an AI-spending bubble’s collapse from 2028 to within a year and expressed greater confidence. This was his dated forecast, not an established outcome.⁠[9][10]

In a public X post, Burry recalled indices rising in early 2000 while many individual stocks were already in bear markets, characterizing the divergence as denial. The comparison continued his criticism of AI-related market structure.⁠[11]

Research newsletter: https://michaeljburry.substack.com/ (opens in a new window). X: https://x.com/michaeljburry (opens in a new window).⁠[12]