US Treasury Secretary Bessent: The AI industry will not repeat the dot-com bust; I have not found "systemic problems"
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at a private meeting in New York that he has not found "systemic problems" in the AI boom, downplaying concerns that the AI industry will repeat the dot-com bust. He said, "This is not Pets.com," and argued that the world's smartest people have put 99% of their net worth into these companies and founded some of the world's most profitable companies, and they believe in AI.
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2026-10-23 08:55 IT Home - Qingyuan
IT Home, October 23 news: According to a report by the UK's Financial Times, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told investors at a private meeting that he had not found any "systemic problems" in the AI boom, thereby downplaying concerns that the AI industry might repeat the bursting of the internet bubble.
On the 21st local time, Bessent attended a meeting in New York co-hosted by JPMorgan and the Robin Hood Foundation, with hundreds of financial industry executives and investors present. The Robin Hood Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones. The meeting was promoted as offering "exclusive investment insights," with tickets starting at $7,500 (about 50,162 yuan at current exchange rates), and reporters were not allowed entry.
According to three people who attended, Bessent, a former macro hedge fund manager, was interviewed by Bridgewater CEO Nir Bar Dea and asked about his views on AI. He said: "I'm pretty good at judging when a system is broken. I don't see a systemic problem."
Bessent's remarks came at a sensitive time for financial markets. Over the past few weeks, markets have been volatile repeatedly, with some investors beginning to question whether AI concept stocks have risen too high, while also worrying about companies issuing large amounts of debt to build data centers and purchase chips. Some analysts believe the current AI investment boom is quite similar to the frenzy during the internet bubble at the turn of the century.
During the 30-minute interview, Bessent talked about the US economy, and in the latter half mainly discussed AI. He was generally optimistic about the benefits that AI technological progress brings to the United States, but also pointed out that data center operators and AI companies have failed to adequately explain these benefits to ordinary Americans. "This is not Pets.com. The smartest people in the world have put 99% of their net worth into these companies and founded some of the most profitable companies in the world. They believe in AI."
IT Home note: Pets.com was one of the last batch of tech companies to hold an initial public offering before the internet bubble peaked in March 2000.