The head of one of the largest US endowments says OpenAI and Anthropic are in big trouble

Scott Wilson knows what it is like to make a contrarian bet that pays off big. His early investment in SpaceX helped create a multi-billion dollar windfall for Washington University's endowment.

Now he's making another one: The trillion-dollar AI labs are in major trouble.

Wilson argues that OpenAI and Anthropic have committed to enormous spending just as cheaper Chinese models are catching up. It's a view that puts him squarely at odds with AI bulls like Vinod Khosla, who believes those massive infrastructure investments are precisely what will make the frontier labs hard to beat.

"These trillion-dollar-plus frontier companies are not worth the liabilities that they signed up for," Wilson said. "There's going to be a ton of free alternatives."

OpenAI has returned huge markups for VC firms as well as schools such as the University of Michigan, whose early $20 million OpenAI investment is now worth over $2 billion. Wilson said he also had the chance to be an early investor in OpenAI but passed because he was not convinced the company would ever make money. Since then, his bearish view has hardened.

"When we looked at the original OpenAI deal that some of our peers participated in and made tons of money on paper, we were highly skeptical," Wilson said. "I've gotten more skeptical over time."