Peter Thiel’s hedge fund has fully exited its Nvidia position, joining SoftBank in a wave of major investors cashing out of the world’s most valuable semiconductor company amid rising concerns of an overheating AI market.
Thiel Macro LLC disclosed in its latest 13F filing that it sold all 537,742 of its Nvidia shares during the third quarter. The stake, valued at roughly US$85 million at the end of Q2, would have been worth around US$100 million by the close of trading on September 30. The filing did not specify the exact date of the sale.
The move mirrors SoftBank’s complete disposal of its Nvidia holdings during the same period, a divestment worth approximately US$5.8 billion. While SoftBank insisted the decision was not a reflection of Nvidia’s performance, it indicated a strategic shift toward increased investment in OpenAI.
Nvidia has remained the uncontested champion of the AI chip race, recently becoming the first company to surpass a US$5 trillion market valuation. Its advanced GPUs, essential for training AI systems, have fuelled unprecedented demand and investor enthusiasm. Yet the timing of these exits suggests rising caution at the top of the market, with analysts and tech leaders warning of an AI bubble forming as valuations soar and competition intensifies.
Despite the sell-offs, some market analysts remain confident. Wedbush’s Dan Ives described Nvidia as a “foundational piece” of the AI revolution and said he expects the company to exceed Wall Street estimates when it releases third-quarter earnings on Wednesday.
Thiel Macro’s recent filings show that the fund has been rotating aggressively across major tech stocks. After starting the year with a portfolio valued at about US$118 million, it climbed to US$212 million at the end of June before settling at US$153 million in September. The fund exited Amazon in the first quarter while building positions in Microsoft, Vistra, and ASML, only to exit Microsoft and ASML in the second quarter. In the third quarter, it re-entered Microsoft, added Apple, and disposed of Vistra.
Tesla remains the only stock that has appeared in the fund’s last four filings, reflecting Thiel’s long connection with Elon Musk since the PayPal era. Even so, the fund cut its Tesla holdings by 76% in the third quarter to 65,000 shares worth about $29 million, after more than quadrupling the stake earlier in the year.
The twin exits by Thiel and SoftBank, though small compared with Nvidia’s US$4.6 trillion valuation, add to a growing narrative of investor caution as markets wait for Nvidia’s latest earnings. The chipmaker remains central to the global AI wave, but the contrasting strategies of major investors highlight the uncertainty surrounding how far and how fast the AI boom will run.
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Peter Thiel exits Nvidia stake as investors grow wary of AI market overheating
