Arthur Hayes says higher oil will force Trump into anti-AI rhetoric, crashing stocks and Bitcoin

Arthur Hayes says higher oil prices can corner Trump into attacking AI, and that kind of campaign turn could hit stocks, banks, and Bitcoin at the same time.

For Arthur, it makes no sense why oil seems ignored when Trump and the IRGC keep trading threats, ships are stuck around Hormuz, the 2-year Treasury yield sits more than 0.5% above fed funds, and AI wealth flows to a small tech crowd.

My theory at the outset is that I am indeed dreaming. The most important variable that exerts a reflexive effect upon the whole investing complex is the price of oil and other hydrocarbons. And while the markets may, for a blip in time, appear to negate this law, shit always comes back to bite you in the proverbial ass.

Trump targets AI companies when oil prices make voters angry

Arthur says Trump’s Iran war is now an election problem. Gas, food, and daily costs matter more to swing voters than speeches. Trump can keep his base, but undecided voters can punish Republicans if the Strait of Hormuz squeeze pushes essentials higher before November.

Tell me the change in price of gasoline and other essential goods like food, and I will tell you who wins an election in Pax Americana.

Arthur says Trump has little room to truly kill inflation now, so the fight becomes optics. Higher oil gives Trump a reason to sound open to an Iran deal. Lower oil takes away the pressure. The IRGC faces its own version because China can push Tehran when energy prices run too hot.

Both the US and Iran have no incentive to meet in the middle while the price of oil is at this level. Yes, it’s up materially from pre-war levels, but it ain’t that bad yet. Regarding the rest of the commodity complex, there aren’t any large populations starving, ‌and many countries have been able to secure supplies of critical industrial commodities from other parts of the world.

Data centers then become the obvious punching bag because voters already worry about power costs, local strain, and jobs.

Arthur says Trump could promise limits on data center growth, AI taxes, and stimulus checks funded by tech profits. Arthur says investors may treat that talk as real.

He points to Tesla ($TSLA) falling 18% intraday after Trump threatened contracts linked to Elon Musk’s business empire. South Korea also almost saw the Kospi hit limit down after AI-tax talk before officials walked it back.

AI debt drains Bitcoin liquidity as giant IPOs flood the market

Arthur says ChatGPT’s launch on November 30, 2022, came near FTX’s collapse, when Bitcoin bottomed near $15,000. Bitcoin later reached $125,000 by October 2025, but Nvidia ($NVDA) gained 11x over the same period. After that Bitcoin high, BTC fell 50%, while Nvidia rose about 10% from late 2025.

AI needed huge amounts of borrowed money for chips, power, and data centers. Arthur says AI firms issued about $1.5 trillion in debt from November 2022 onward, while U.S. M2 rose by about $1.5 trillion. He says $1.3 trillion of that debt came from 2025 to now.

My initial hunch is that AI sucked up all available fiat liquidity, especially of the US dollar flavor. AI, as we know it, is very capital-intensive. We must build data centers that convert electricity into intelligence. Hydrocarbons, nuclear, and renewable energy push turbines that create electricity. That electricity travels to data centers where it passes over specialized silicon chips that train models and conduct inference.

Arthur lists three threats to AI: higher energy costs, giant IPO supply, and Trump’s anti-AI campaign talk. Alphabet ($GOOGL), Anthropic, and OpenAI face higher token costs if oil and gas rise. SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI, and lockup expiries could bring more supply than all dot-com IPOs combined.

SpaceX could sell only 4% to 5% of shares at first, at a price near 100x sales, and reach $1.8 trillion. A 50% pop would put it near Amazon ($AMZN). Arthur says the float may grow 5x by early September, right as Anthropic and OpenAI eye trillion-dollar listings.

There are three darts that will pierce the AI bubble. They are: higher energy costs, the inability of the market to absorb the three mega IPOs (SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI), and Trump’s anti-AI rhetoric.

Arthur says Kevin Warsh may hold rates at the June 16-17 Fed meeting, but a hawkish hold can still hurt risk assets. Maelstrom is long U.S.-listed energy producers, out of AI stocks, and sold $HYPE, $NEAR, $WLD, and $ZEC. Arthur still holds Bitcoin and Ether, while using tactical shorts.

“That leaves Bitcoin and Ether. Ether is dead but functional. I have no immediate large capital demands that require liquidation of my Ether, so it shall stay unmolested. Because ultimately, I believe that once the AI bubble pops, it will cause a financial crisis that will usher forth the Big Print, I am confident that Bitcoin will dump then pump,” said Arthur.

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