Speaker · Updated
Bradley Tusk: latest market views
Tusk Ventures
Summary
Bradley Tusk is a venture capitalist, political strategist and philanthropist who is founder and CEO of Tusk Ventures, a venture fund investing in early-stage startups in highly regulated industries, and who previously managed Mike Bloomberg's 2009 mayoral campaign and served as Deputy Governor of Illinois.
Chorus has 13 views from Bradley Tusk across 2 episodes on CNBC Power Lunch and Prof G Markets since October 14, 2026. Their latest calls: bullish on Doctronic; bearish on Anthropic, CoreWeave and OpenAI.
Where they stand
Their latest bullish or bearish call on each company.
What they talk about most
The latest views
Newest first. Every quote is checked against the episode's transcript.
CoreWeaveBearish
CoreWeave's debt-funded capex is hard to make pay as yields rise and data-center permitting slows.
Revenue has to exceed the cost of generating it, and CoreWeave's revenue is dwarfed by its debt and capex. Rising yields from accumulated borrowing make its roughly $35 billion capex need very tough to finance. Political opposition to data center construction also stretches build times, which raises project costs for any project being underwritten.
“And that's why the yields are moving up so fast and that makes it really hard for companies like CoreWeave where they've got $35,000,000,000 that they need to do in capex.”at 3:07
CNBC Power Lunch: Anthropic Investor Day, CoreWeave Shares Sink, Media Stock Roundup 10/14/26 ·
AI infrastructure & data centers
Alternative compute startups can cut data center energy needs and ease the political pushback.
Tusk Ventures has been investing in startups that offer alternative forms of compute. These can make data center energy needs much lower and compute more efficient. He argues that lower energy use improves the political process around data centers and reduces the cost of operating them. This is presented as a route to making money in AI without relying on the GPU-heavy buildout.
“for us, for example, we've been investing in startups that can do alternate forms of compute that can make the energy needs for data centers a lot lower and make the compute a lot more efficient”at 4:51
CNBC Power Lunch: Anthropic Investor Day, CoreWeave Shares Sink, Media Stock Roundup 10/14/26 ·
DoctronicBullish
Doctronic, an AI medical advisor, is generating real revenue and growing very fast.
Doctronic uses AI to triage patients, connect them via telemedicine, and renew prescriptions in Utah, which lets it reach the pharmacy and doctor markets. Tusk says it generates real revenue and grows very quickly as a result. He presents it as the kind of application-layer AI business he prefers because it does not need to fund data centers or GPUs.
“through its use of AI to get into the pharmacy world and through its ability to work through telemedicine and doctors generate real revenue and it is growing incredibly fast as a result.”at 6:19
CNBC Power Lunch: Anthropic Investor Day, CoreWeave Shares Sink, Media Stock Roundup 10/14/26 ·
AI infrastructure & data centers
Data-center buildout plans and compute needs may not have been economically sound from the start.
Tusk argues that the assumption that AI requires ever more compute, data centers and energy, which underpins the buildout, may not hold economically. Most consumers and businesses are satisfied with cheaper tools, so the revenue needed to pay for the enormous cost of compute may not materialize. He calls the belief that huge spending will just work out magical thinking that never works.
“a lot of the underlying assumptions that were made that led to the plans for this many data centers, this much compute need, this much everything else really might not have been that economically sound in the first place.”at 6:42
CNBC Power Lunch: Anthropic Investor Day, CoreWeave Shares Sink, Media Stock Roundup 10/14/26 ·
Free open models like Meta's Llama already meet most users' needs, challenging paid AI subscriptions.
Paid subscriptions to Claude or OpenAI typically cost $20 to $200 a month. Meta's Llama and other tools are available for free, and that covers what 99% of consumers and businesses need. Tusk argues this means the most expensive compute is not needed for most use cases, which puts the economics of frontier-model businesses at risk.
“if you wanna use Claude or OpenAI, you're using a subscription model paying typically 20 to $200 a month. You can go on Meta and use Lama for free.”at 7:37
CNBC Power Lunch: Anthropic Investor Day, CoreWeave Shares Sink, Media Stock Roundup 10/14/26 ·
AnthropicBearish
Anthropic's roughly 34x revenue IPO valuation looks questionable given falling token prices and cheaper rivals.
Assuming the IPO happens next month, a $74 billion revenue run rate against a $2 trillion valuation and $500 billion in CapEx commitments implies about a 34x revenue multiple, roughly triple Meta's or Alphabet's. Tusk argues the company faces heavy competition, token prices are falling and compressing margins, and cheaper models are available. Data center politics and rising interest rates add to the pressure, so he sees the company in a tough spot.
“if you look at assuming that that Anthropix, you know, IPO next month does happen, it's a pretty questionable bet... So at a $74,000,000,000 run rate ... but with a $2,000,000,000,000 valuation and 500,000,000,000 in current CapEx commitments, it's a 34 x multiple on revenue.”at 11:33
CNBC Power Lunch: Anthropic Investor Day, CoreWeave Shares Sink, Media Stock Roundup 10/14/26 ·
AnthropicBearish
Going public would add quarterly revenue pressure that pushes Anthropic toward riskier, more advanced models.
CEO Dario Amodei calls AI an existential risk, and the S-1 discusses that risk, so adding public-market pressure is contradictory. Quarterly reporting and revenue and EBITDA expectations would push the company to keep releasing more sophisticated models to avoid failing investors. Tusk frames this as a binary choice between safety and capital. He also notes Amodi signed Trump's self-regulatory pledge rather than push for government regulation.
“And if you were that worried about it, why would you add on the pressure of the public markets on top of all the pressure you already face? ... And that just creates the exact kind of existential risk that he talks about.”at 21:35
CNBC Power Lunch: Anthropic Investor Day, CoreWeave Shares Sink, Media Stock Roundup 10/14/26 ·
Musk's midterm spending will largely be wasted; its real return is favour-owing and deterrence, not flipping the House.
With Republicans polling poorly, Tusk expects most of Musk's roughly $366M midterm spending to be wasted. He sees Musk's return in two things. First, candidates he helps elect owe him and can be called on for help with SpaceX, Tesla or The Boring Company. Second, being seen as the biggest spender creates fear and deterrence among politicians who think fundraising matters. He adds that Musk and Jared Kushner will likely be frequent congressional witnesses, since private citizens cannot fight subpoenas as government officials can.
“I think it largely will be for waste. But I think the ROI for him comes in two things.”at 6:55
Prof G Markets: Elon Musk Spent $366M On The Midterms — Will It Work? ·
Musk's money won't stop Democrats flipping the House, and even Democratic wins would pass little legislation.
Tusk says Musk's money will not change the fact that the House is going to flip in the midterms, a few weeks away. He also argues that legislation will not move even with a Democratic House and Senate, because the Senate needs 60 votes for cloture to beat a filibuster and Democrats will not reach that. Confirmations of judges may move at the margins.
“His money's not gonna change the fact that the house is going to flip.”at 7:34
Prof G Markets: Elon Musk Spent $366M On The Midterms — Will It Work? ·
Campaign money has sharply diminishing returns; heavy spending like Musk's has limited impact on election outcomes.
Most campaign money goes to broadcast TV, which few people watch now as viewing moves to streaming, and direct mail is discarded unread. Recent winners such as Trump and Mamdani won on energy, social media and fit with the moment, not money. Mamdani beat Cuomo, who spent about $70M against Mamdani's $17M, and Trump beat Harris and Clinton despite being outspent. Tusk argues money has an impact until a point, after which returns diminish very fast, and that billionaires over-index on money because it is their main resource.
“It's the other way, actually. I think that it has an impact until a certain point, and then the returns become diminishing very fast.”at 8:28
Prof G Markets: Elon Musk Spent $366M On The Midterms — Will It Work? ·
Cheap social media ads now beat expensive broadcast TV at reaching voters, so broadcast spending is much less impactful.
Technology has changed how voters are reached. Free or cheap channels like social media are now very impactful, while expensive, outdated broadcast television is much less so. Tusk's firm runs the clean energy super PAC Investment Tomorrow, which ran ads only on Rumble and Truth Social, not broadcast, against Chip Roy, not nice enough to Trump. Roy lost the Texas attorney general race by 11 points. The PAC has spent about $6M, and three incumbent members of Congress have already lost.
“the very nature of technology has changed the way that you reach voters, which makes things that are free or very cheap, like social media, really impactful and makes things that are highly expensive and outdated, like broadcast television, much less impactful.”at 10:27
Prof G Markets: Elon Musk Spent $366M On The Midterms — Will It Work? ·
Midterms won't change tech policy much; states will regulate AI and data centers bipartisanly whatever the outcome.
Trump is strongly anti-regulation and would veto federal tech rules that Congress tries to pass, and Congress would not override him. Action will happen in the states, where Republican and Democratic governors alike are going after AI and data centers on a bipartisan basis. Tusk therefore expects relatively uniform tech outcomes whoever wins or loses in the midterms.
“And I would argue that there's actually not gonna be much impact on tech in the midterms simply because Trump is so anti regulation.”at 11:22
Prof G Markets: Elon Musk Spent $366M On The Midterms — Will It Work? ·
OpenAIBearish
OpenAI's campaign against Alex Bores backfired and raised his profile, so AI firms risk political collateral damage.
OpenAI came out aggressively against Alex Bores, who passed frontier model regulation in Albany and was a leading candidate in the high-profile Manhattan congressional primary. Voters who heard that Sam Altman opposed Bores liked Bores more, which propelled his campaign. Bores still lost, but Tusk argues the effort helped him anyway. He says companies in social media, data centers, and frontier models and hyperscalers must be very careful because of this kind of collateral damage.
“Sam Altman inadvertently in trying to kill Boris ended up helping them. So, yes, I do think these companies have to be very careful”at 12:43
Prof G Markets: Elon Musk Spent $366M On The Midterms — Will It Work? ·
Shows
- CNBC Power Lunch · 1 episode
- Prof G Markets · 1 episode
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