Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller Dumped 2 Chip Stocks to Load Up On These 2 Robotics-Focused AI Plays

Stanley Druckenmiller has long been viewed as one of the best investors ever.

The billionaire worked under the legendary investor George Soros, and also mentored key financial figures today, such as U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh.

His own fund, Duquesne Capital, never had a year in the red from 1981 to 2010, while generating eye-popping average annual returns of over 30%. Currently, Druckenmiller manages his personal wealth through the $5.2 billion asset Duquesne Family Office, where investors can see what he bought and sold each quarter.

In the second quarter, Druckenmiller sold three chip stocks and loaded up on two robotics-focused artificial intelligence (AI) plays.

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Selling a memory and a CPU company

It's not uncommon to see Druckenmiller trade in and out of stocks quarter to quarter, especially in today's world, where valuations can go from cheap to highly overvalued in a matter of weeks and sometimes days.

In the second quarter, the Duquesne Family Office exited its positions in central processing unit (CPU) company Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and memory maker Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU), both of which have been among the biggest winners of the year.

Data by YCharts.

For Intel, it has been all about demand for CPUs to power agentic AI, which are mostly autonomous systems capable of completing human-like tasks. CPUs power older technology like cell phones and laptops.

While graphics processing units (GPUs) still handle much of the inference that powers the reasoning component of agentic AI, CPUs are now viewed as the most efficient way to orchestrate these tasks. Intel now also has its own foundry that plans to make chips for external customers.

Micron now has a market cap of over $1 trillion, as demand for memory has soared. Memory, such as NAND flash memory and dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), plays different roles in supplying data to GPUs.

As GPU clusters scale and more data centers get built, demand for memory is expected to be constrained. While both businesses still have big roles to play in the AI revolution, I'm guessing Druckenmiller and his team thought it might be time to take profits after the strong run by each stock.

Even if you are a firm believer in AI's long-term staying power, that doesn't mean there won't be a lot of volatility along the way.

Two stocks believed to be at the forefront of robotics

In the second quarter, Duquesne Family Office purchased call options on Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) with a notional value of nearly $53 million. The fund also increased its position in Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) tenfold and bought call options on the company. Amazon is now one of the Top 10 holdings in the portfolio.

Tesla has already begun deploying robots, in a sense, with its autonomous robotaxi fleet, which was operating to some degree in seven cities at the end of the second quarter.

While there are still many questions about the fleet right now, such as whether it is truly autonomous or how long it might take to become a real contributor to revenue at the company, Tesla is believed to be one of the leaders in the space and also claims to have a cost advantage when it comes to building robotaxis.

The company has also recently begun production of its humanoid Optimus robots, which will supposedly be capable of performing household chores autonomously, saving people a lot of time throughout the day. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said he thinks Optimus will be the company's largest product ever.

Amazon's business has several key areas where robots can play a role. The company has already started integrating robots into its warehouses and fulfillment processes, which is expected to trim billions in expenses in the coming years.

Amazon is also in the process of making drone deliveries part of its massive e-commerce business, and has also entered the humanoid robot space through its acquisition of Fauna Robotics earlier this year.

Of these two stocks, I still find Tesla's valuation too rich, but I think Amazon is one of the AI giants that can really benefit from robotics and generate strong long-term returns for shareholders.

Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Broadcom, Intel, Micron Technology, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.