Jim Cramer Turns on the Two Kings of AI: “If You Want to Destroy Trust, You Couldn’t Find a Better Way”
Jim Cramer called Anthropic and OpenAI the pioneers of AI and the most brilliant companies in the race against China, then accused them of doing more damage to public trust than anyone else in the industry.
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Jim Cramer opened a recent Mad Money segment by focusing on the companies driving the AI buildout. “Trust, once destroyed, is very hard to restore,” he said.
While referencing OpenAI and Anthropic’s call for more regulation because AI could get out of hand, Jim Cramer thinks this call has massively lowered public trust: “If you want to destroy trust in the name of capitalism, beating China, security, you couldn’t find a better way to do it than the way that the two kings of AI have done it, Anthropic and OpenAI.“
He gave credit to both companies where it’s due: “They’re brilliant. They’re ahead of everyone, including the Chinese. These companies are the pioneers of artificial intelligence,” Cramer said. But he can’t deny this move has damaged public trust.
Why Cramer Thinks the AI Boom Has a Trust Problem
Cramer pointed to the growing list of public concerns surrounding the buildout, including the rapid construction of data centers, the speed of AI development, safety, job losses, national security, and the race with China.
Those concerns are becoming harder to ignore as the amount of money committed to AI infrastructure explodes. NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) has guided for $108 billion in fiscal Q3 revenue plus or minus 2% and disclosed supply obligations of $279 billion tied to Vera Rubin memory procurement.
Cramer Puts OpenAI and Anthropic at the Center of the Debate
Cramer also criticized the companies building data centers and other infrastructure supporting the AI boom, but he reserved his strongest criticism for OpenAI and Anthropic.
These companies are among the leaders pushing frontier AI forward and stand to benefit enormously if adoption continues. That puts OpenAI and Anthropic at the center of both the opportunity and the concerns surrounding AI development.
The China Race Makes Slowing AI Much More Complicated
Even if policymakers become increasingly concerned about AI safety, jobs, data centers, or other consequences of rapid development, slowing American companies could give Chinese competitors more time to catch up. That creates a difficult trade-off between addressing concerns at home and maintaining the United States’ position in the global AI race.
NVIDIA and OpenAI Make the Case for $500 Billion More
On September 15, Cramer sat with NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang and separately with OpenAI’s chief financial officer. On the fiscal Q2 call, Huang framed the buildout as “a platform shift, and it affects every computer company.”
Nvidia’s Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress addressed the circular financing critique directly: “We recognize the scale of this support, and we know some will call this circular financing. We see it differently.” Investors weighing Cramer’s argument should read those remarks against NVIDIA’s partnerships with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR to mobilize over $500 billion of third-party capital.
Investable Angle for a Buildout You Cannot Buy Directly
While OpenAI and Anthropic are private, there are three types of public companies worth looking into to take advantage of AI megatrends.
First, in silicon, AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) is deploying up to two gigawatts of MI450 series GPUs in Helios with Anthropic beginning in the first half of 2027. NVIDIA trades at a forward PE of 23, and AMD at a forward PE of 32.
Second, in equipment and construction, Vertiv (NYSE:VRT) reported Q2 revenue of $3.27 billion, up 24.1%, and Quanta Services (NYSE:PWR) closed the quarter with a record $53.44 billion backlog, up roughly 49% year over year.
Third, in power, Constellation Energy (NASDAQ:CEG) signed 920 MW of long-term nuclear power purchase agreements during Q2.
Key Takeaways
OpenAI and Anthropic are helping drive an enormous infrastructure buildout, but maintaining the political and public support for that spending matters to the companies supplying it.
If long-term power agreements, data center projects, and supplier backlogs keep growing, the AI buildout is likely to continue despite the trust debate.
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Thomas Richmond is a financial writer and content strategist with 5+ years of experience covering stocks and financial markets. He has published over 500 articles focused on individual stock analysis, helping investors better understand business fundamentals, stock valuations, and long-term opportunities.
Thomas previously served as a Content Lead at TIKR, a stock research platform, where he helped scale the company’s blog to hundreds of articles per month and contributed to a weekly newsletter reaching more than 100,000 investors.
Outside of work, Thomas enjoys weight lifting and soccer.
