Sat, 04 Jan 2025 00:23:00 +0000
In 2025, fiscal conservatives in the U.S. will gain significantly increased political influence, with austerity and restrained government spending becoming a dominant theme in federal and state politics.
“My biggest political winner for 2025 are fiscal conservatives... I think that the fiscal conservatives that have been clamoring for a more restrained approach to spending will have their day in 2025.” View on YouTube
By the end of 2025, the emerging field of candidates for the 2026 U.S. midterms will be noticeably younger than in prior cycles, with multiple prominent new nationally recognized candidates in roughly the 40–45 age bracket or younger gaining traction.
“Trump's cabinet picks have an average age of 40 to 45 years old... I do think that this marks the beginning of a new trend in the kind of age range of political candidates shifting younger... as candidates start to emerge for the midterms by the end of 2025, we'll start to see younger new names start to pop up that deliver resonant messages and aren't part of kind of the old guard of the aging political class.” View on YouTube
By the end of 2025, Vladimir Putin will be in a significantly weaker geopolitical position: Xi Jinping will have visibly begun to distance China from Russia, and a Trump administration will have imposed or negotiated terms that are widely perceived as very unfavorable to Russia in the context of the Ukraine war.
“I think Putin I think Putin is going to lose bigly... I just think she is going to begin decoupling from Putin... I think Trump is going to be a lot tougher on Putin than people think. And I think he's going to get a very, very, uh, deal that's very, very bad for Russia and Ukraine.” View on YouTube
In 2025, the pro‑war neoconservative faction in U.S. politics will lose influence relative to the more restraint‑oriented, anti‑interventionist wing (e.g., aligned with JD Vance), with concrete policy or legislative outcomes demonstrating a setback for the neocon position.
“I'm going to predict the pro-war neocons who are going to go head to head with the JD Vance and Ellen's and others of the world, and I think that they're going to lose... I think this is going to be the year. It's all going to kind of come to a head. I think they're going to end up on the losing side.” View on YouTube
By the end of 2025, a string of right‑leaning electoral outcomes will occur: (1) Justin Trudeau will lose the Canadian federal election to Pierre Poilievre; (2) AfD will win national power in Germany; (3) Marine Le Pen will win the French presidency if an early election is triggered from a deadlock; and (4) the UK Labour government will fall and Nigel Farage will win national leadership, collectively marking a major setback for progressive, identity‑politics‑oriented parties in the G8.
“The biggest political loser of 2025 is going to be progressivism... in Canada, Justin Trudeau is going to lose massively to Pierre Poilievre... in Germany. AfD looks like they will win in France if there's a deadlock and it goes into an election. More than likely Marine Le Pen is going to win. And then in the U.K.... if all of that comes to pass in the U.K., I think you're going to see the Labour government fall. And I think you're going to see Nigel Farage win... by the end of 25? It's very much a repudiation of this class based identity politics.” View on YouTube
During 2025, there will be a visible surge in deployment and public awareness of autonomous hardware and humanoid robots, such that by year‑end they are in mainstream commercial use cases and widely recognized by the public as a major new technology platform.
“I think 2025 will be the year of the robot... I think this is going to be the year where we're all going to look at humanoid robots and autonomous systems and be like, oh my God, I can't believe this is here.” View on YouTube
In 2025, demand for AI inference compute (GPUs/accelerators) will again exceed available supply, producing a notable industry‑wide shortage similar to the GPU shortages experienced in 2023.
“we are the other like inference compute is going to be the the kind of derivative winner of that. We're going to run out of GPUs, accelerators compute in 2025 the same way we did in 23.” View on YouTube
By the end of 2025, U.S. dollar‑denominated stablecoins will see their aggregate transaction volume increase by roughly 4–5x versus 2024 levels and will begin materially eroding the market share and economics of the Visa/Mastercard card‑payments duopoly.
“I think the biggest business winner of 2025 are going to be dollar denominated stablecoins... I think we're going to finally attack the duopoly of Visa and Mastercard... I think stablecoins could quadruple or quintuple by the end of 25. I think it's just going to be an enormous market.” View on YouTube
Measured over full‑year 2025, dollar‑denominated stablecoins will process transaction volumes that significantly exceed Visa’s global payment volume, continuing or widening the gap observed in Q2 2024.
“Stablecoin usage at the end of the second quarter of 2024 was about 1.1 billion transactions. That summed up to $8.5 trillion of transaction volume... it was more than double Visa's transaction volume... I would say that the big trend in 25 is stablecoin usage.” View on YouTube
In 2025, companies deriving more than 35% of their revenue from U.S. government services/contracting will underperform comparable peers financially or in valuation, making them relative business losers.
“Government service providers. You do not you do not want to have the United States government at any level is over 35% of your revenue.” View on YouTube
By the end of 2025, the combined market capitalization of the top 7–8 mega‑cap U.S. tech stocks (“Magnificent Seven/Eight”) will have declined by at least US$2 trillion from their peak 2024 values, even if the percentage decline is on the order of only ~10%.
“I think when we look back, the absolute dollar drawdown of the Mag seven will be in the trillions of dollars... it could even be 10%, but 10% in the Mag eight will be a couple trillion bucks.” View on YouTube
In 2025, legacy U.S. defense and aerospace primes such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon will face significant business or stock‑performance headwinds, underperforming newer tech‑driven defense companies (e.g., Palantir, Anduril) as government defense spending shifts toward more ROI‑driven, tech‑oriented solutions.
“I went with the kind of old defense and aerospace providers Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon... I think that this government contracting business across the board is going to be deeply challenged this year with all the new blood.” View on YouTube
OpenAI’s private‑market valuation of approximately $157 billion reached in 2024 will prove to be its peak; by the end of 2025, OpenAI’s enterprise value will be materially lower than that level.
“I think the one that is the most overpriced of of all of this, and I think is going to see their peak valuation is open AI... I think OpenAI's valuation made no sense... I think that that whole thing could blow up.” View on YouTube
By the end of 2025, OpenAI will not have successfully completed a legally clean conversion of its original nonprofit structure into a fully conventional for‑profit corporate structure.
“Is OpenAI will not be able to convert from non-profit to for profit in 2025.” View on YouTube
During 2025, multiple large legacy auto manufacturers (traditional OEMs) will announce or complete major consolidation transactions (mergers or acquisitions) in response to competitive pressure from Tesla and Chinese EV makers, amounting to a visible industry wave of auto mega‑mergers.
“I think that this is the year that we will see the collapse of the traditional auto OEMs... I think the result of that will be a wave of auto mega-mergers.” View on YouTube
In 2025, several multi‑billion‑dollar financing or subsidy packages will be announced for U.S.‑based hardware and robotics manufacturing build‑outs, comparable in scale and prominence to the 2023–24 AI compute build‑out funding wave.
“I do think that there's going to be massive funding deals, similar to what we saw this past year for compute build out. I think we're going to see massive funding deals for hardware based manufacturing build out in the United States... So you'll see a bunch of these big blockbuster deals for hardware build out in the US.” View on YouTube
In 2025: (1) overall corporate M&A activity will surge after several slow years, with a marked increase in deal volume and size; (2) Intel will undergo at least one major strategic transaction (e.g., large acquisition, divestiture, spin‑off, or transformative partnership); and (3) multiple independent frontier AI labs will be acquired by larger technology or cloud companies.
“I think the biggest business deal is that they're going to be deals. I think you're going to see a tidal wave of M&A after four years of not being able to get anything done... something will happen with Intel and that will be big... I do think you will see a lot of these frontier AI labs that are independent be acquired.” View on YouTube
In 2025, at least one major strategic partnership will be formed among the large autonomy/e-commerce/logistics players Amazon, DoorDash, Uber, Tesla, and Waymo focused on autonomy, delivery, food delivery, or e‑commerce.
“I think the age of autonomy is here, and I think there is going to be some partnerships that will happen between Amazon, DoorDash, Uber, Tesla, Waymo and that cohort.” View on YouTube
By the end of 2025, at least one major strategic partnership or merger/acquisition will be announced among the set of large autonomy and logistics players (Amazon, DoorDash, Uber, Tesla, Waymo and similar), aimed at integrating autonomous vehicles or delivery with large‑scale e‑commerce or food/ride delivery.
“I think there is going to be some partnerships that will happen between Amazon, DoorDash, Uber, Tesla, Waymo and that cohort... Tesla buying DoorDash and Uber or Amazon buying DoorDash and Uber could be the greatest service ever created.” View on YouTube
In 2025, Waymo will complete a major capital markets transaction: either a large financing round, an IPO, or a merger/acquisition with a major ride‑sharing company.
“You could see something happen with Waymo this year that could either be something like a massive financing, an IPO or a merger or acquisition with one of the big ridesharing companies.” View on YouTube
In 2025, Waymo will undertake a major capital or corporate event: either a large external financing round, an IPO, or a merger/acquisition transaction, potentially involving a major ride‑sharing platform.
“I think you could see something happen with Waymo this year that could either be something like a massive financing, an IPO or a merger or acquisition with one of the big ridesharing companies.” View on YouTube
Ridesharing’s share of total rides (by trip count) in the US will increase from roughly 1.5% to around 20% within a few years from 2025 (described as "a very short period of time").
“the Tam is going to go to 20% in a very short period of time, and it's going to be across the board.” View on YouTube
By the end of 2025, at least one major US "mainline" bank will experience a banking crisis driven by reserve and balance‑sheet stress (mark‑to‑market or credit‑default related).
“I think that you're going to see a banking crisis in one of the major mainline banks.” View on YouTube
Between 2025 and 2028 inclusive, the United States will have at least one calendar year with real GDP growth above 5%.
“I think that America over the next, at some point over the next four years, will print at least one year of greater than 5% GDP growth, real GDP growth.” View on YouTube
In 2025, at least one major frontier AI lab will stop publicly releasing its state‑of‑the‑art model weights or full models, keeping its best model fully in‑house to reduce knowledge distillation and IP leakage.
“As far as a specific prediction for 25, because I don't know when that will happen. I think you will see the Frontier Lab stop releasing their leading edge models to prevent knowledge distillation and their IP effectively being stolen.” View on YouTube
During 2025, socialist political movements and advocacy in the United States will grow dramatically in breadth and depth compared with 2024 (e.g., more organizations, greater membership, or significantly increased political influence).
“we'll see a rise, a dramatic rise in socialist movements in 2025, in the United States.” View on YouTube
By the end of 2025, OpenAI will lose its market leadership and fall to at least fourth place among AI labs by enterprise value and/or technical leadership, amounting to a functional collapse of its current dominant position.
“My most contrarian belief was OpenAI loses its lead, loses its non-profit to for profit transition, and becomes the number four player in AI. The total collapse of OpenAI is my most contrarian prediction for 2020.” View on YouTube
Jeff Bezos will complete a sale of The Washington Post during calendar year 2025.
“Jeff Bezos will sell The Washington Post in 2025.” View on YouTube
In 2025, manufacturers of high‑bandwidth memory (notably SK Hynix and Micron, and possibly Samsung if it ramps HBM) will be among the best‑performing publicly traded assets, outperforming major equity indices.
“I think the companies that make high bandwidth memory... would be my pick.” View on YouTube
If severe credit stress or a banking crisis occurs in 2025, long positions in selected credit default swaps (CDS) on vulnerable credits will become the best‑performing assets of 2025 in return terms; otherwise those CDS positions will likely lose money.
“this is a loser trade. Okay. But I would be long CDs... I hope it loses money, but if it hits, it will be the best performing asset of 2025.” View on YouTube
Chinese technology equities (as represented by broad Chinese tech ETFs and large caps like Alibaba) will significantly appreciate in 2025, outperforming many other equity sectors, assuming macro conditions are not severely adverse.
“So I went with Chinese tech stocks. Chinese tech ETFs... these stocks could be poised for a pretty good run in 25 if the macro works out.” View on YouTube
In 2025, the group of largest US tech stocks often called the "Mag 7" (e.g., Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, Tesla) will be the best‑performing major asset class, outperforming broad equity indices and other highlighted asset picks.
“I think the Mac seven is going to be the best performing asset.” View on YouTube
In 2025, enterprise application software companies as a group will underperform the broader equity market and face significant business headwinds due to AI agents and alternative solutions.
“Enterprise Application Software... I think enterprise application software will be in a lot of pain.” View on YouTube
In 2025, large incumbent enterprise software vendors ("software industrial complex") will begin to show clear signs of business deterioration—such as slowing growth, margin pressure, or notable customer churn—relative to AI‑native competitors.
“the software industrial complex, these old mainline traditional enterprise software companies... I think you're going to start to see fissures in those businesses in 2025.” View on YouTube
Vertical SaaS companies will be among the worst‑performing software assets in 2025, with their valuations and/or revenues hurt by AI‑driven in‑house tool development and pricing compression.
“I'm probably just going to triple underline vertical SaaS again... Pricing being compressed as companies explore in-house tools built with AI.” View on YouTube
In 2025, legacy auto OEM equities and real‑estate investments (particularly in overbuilt US markets) will be among the worst‑performing major asset classes.
“I think legacy car companies and real estate are going to face continued headwinds and be terrible assets... So I think these are going to be the two worst performing asset” View on YouTube
In 2025, the US will refrain from major rule changes such as easing supplemental leverage ratio treatment of Treasuries to prop up banks; if those goal‑post‑moving regulatory tweaks do not occur, it will indicate that elected officials rather than the "deep state" are driving policy.
“Small, arcane regulatory changes that allow us to kick the can down the road stop in its tracks. This is an example.” View on YouTube
During 2025, the US will announce significant new nuclear power plant projects and/or regulatory reforms that materially ease the path for nuclear power build‑out.
“My most anticipated trend is around the announcement of build out of nuclear power in the United States in 2025, as a function of deregulation and some new technologies.” View on YouTube
Across 2025, frontier AI capabilities (e.g., benchmarks in reasoning, coding, or multi‑modal performance) will improve at a rate such that each quarter’s progress exceeds the annual progress seen in 2023 and 2024.
“I think AI is going to make more progress per quarter in 2025 than it did per year in 23 and 24.” View on YouTube
In 2025, venture capital DPI (distributions to paid‑in capital) will surge due to a marked increase in tech M&A activity and IPO volume following reduced antitrust pressure from Lina Khan’s FTC.
“exits in DPI shower down and we'll have this incredible distribution. As the wrath of Khan ends and M&A and IPOs will surge. That is my prediction my most anticipated trend.” View on YouTube
During Trump’s new term beginning 2025, the administration will declassify and publicly release large volumes of previously secret files (including on topics like JFK, Epstein, and other long‑standing controversies).
“It is the enormity of the files that are going to get declassified and released by the Trump administration.” View on YouTube