AI Companies Are Trying to Hide a Staggering Amount of Debt

Article URL: https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-companies-hide-debt-off-balance-sheet

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49020999

Points: 315

# Comments: 146

Hacker News 讨论

316 points · 146 comments · 查看原帖

1. senshan

   As long as this debt does not make it into life insurance and pension funds, we are fine. The trouble is that private credit is taking control of some life insurance companies and off-loads this debt to these. When these fail, it will become everyone's problem. > Risks to financial stability may also stem from entities with particularly high exposure to private credit markets, such as insurers influenced by private equity firms and certain groups of pension funds. The assets of private‐equity‐controlled insurers have grown significantly in recent years, with these entities owning significantly more exposure to less‐liquid investments than other insurers https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/gfsr/2024/apr... https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/gfsr/2024/apr...

2. wongarsu

   Do they? Is a company with $200 billion annual revenue and earnings (EBITDA) of $100 billion having $420 billion of off-balance-sheet debt really staggering? In many other industries that would be a perfectly normal amount of debt to have. It's only unusual because we are used to tech companies having so much cash on hand they don't know where to put it

3. chasd00

   Are they really "trying to hide" this debt? I think it's pretty common knowledge that a lot of these companies are using debt/bonds for funding. The debt not showing up where the author wants is a reporting formality not an attempt to hide it.

4. JohnMakin

   > Meta alone has amassed around $420 billion in off-balance-sheet debt, according to Nikkei, Isn't this an existential type of bet?

5. Havoc

   Would have been nice if the article had any substantive facts in it

6. lardosaurusrex

   "No you guys it isn't actually an issue because it isn't." Why? "Because it isn't; okay?!" oh ok.

7. simonw

   Something doesn't quite smell right about this story. Here's a key paragraph from the Nikkei story that this Futurism story re-tells: > Companies disclose such future debt not in their balance sheets, but in annotations to their quarterly financial statements. This is a legitimate practice under accounting rules, but may make it difficult for retail investors to recognize risks. Does that justify a "tries to hide" headline? This is also one of those cases where the headline is free but the details are behind a paywall. I do think the story itself is notable, but I expect the discussion is going to lack some nuance.

8. u1hcw9nx

   Only Oracle is in any kind of danger from their debt load, though. I have not checked SpaceX situation. Meta, Google, Amazon, .. they can take the hit and go on.