CNBC's Latest Market Spin: Why Cramer is Suddenly Worried About This 'Record' Market

The AI Gold Rush is a Shell Game, and We're the Chumps

So, OpenAI is officially getting into the chip business with Broadcom. The headlines are screaming, the stock popped nearly 10%, and the usual cast of characters on financial news are patting themselves on the back. I can almost hear the sound of champagne corks echoing from Silicon Valley to Wall Street. It’s supposed to be another victory lap in the glorious, inevitable march of AI.

Give me a break.

Let’s look at what we actually know. They’re building “10 gigawatts of custom AI accelerators.” Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? It’s a big number. Big numbers make investors feel safe. But the financial terms? “Not disclosed.” Of course not. Why would they be? Transparency is for suckers.

Then there’s the whole song and dance about the mystery "$10 billion customer" that Broadcom has been bragging about for a month. Everyone with a brain assumed it was OpenAI. But now Broadcom’s guy, Charlie Kawwas, tells CNBC it’s a different company. So we’re supposed to believe that not one, but two different entities are throwing around sums larger than the GDP of a small country on Broadcom chips, and we’re not allowed to know who they are?

This isn’t business; it’s a magic trick. It's like watching a street hustler play the shell game. They move the cups around so fast, flash so many numbers and buzzwords—custom AI accelerators! Ten gigawatts! Hyperscalers!—that you’re too dizzy to notice you’re being had. The entire point is to create an aura of massive, unstoppable momentum. Who cares if the details are murky? Just look at the stock chart, stupid. Are you in or are you out?

And what does it even mean for OpenAI to be "venturing into the chipmaking business?" Are they building fabs? No. They’re just co-designing a chip that Broadcom, a company that already makes chips, will make for them. This is a branding exercise. A way for OpenAI to position itself as a vertically integrated titan, a true competitor to the giants, when in reality, it's just another customer placing a very, very large order. What happens when that order is filled? Or when the next, better chip comes along from Nvidia or someone else?

It's All Just Noise

You have to zoom out to see the real picture. This AI chip frenzy isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s the lead story in a news cycle that feels like it was written by a paranoid algorithm.

On the same day, we’re told that former President Trump has single-handedly brokered a peace deal in Gaza. He flies to Tel Aviv, gives a speech about ending the "long and painful nightmare," and we’re supposed to what, applaud? While the Houthi rebels are openly stating they have no intention of stopping their attacks in the Red Sea. The peace deal is for the cameras; the war for control continues unabated. Its the same old story.

Then you have the Pentagon scrambling to stockpile a billion dollars' worth of rare earth minerals because China is tightening the screws, a move Trump apparently provoked. A professor gets on TV and calls the fact that we don't have our own reserve "scandalous." Scandalous? We’ve known about this dependency for decades. This isn't a scandal; it's the predictable outcome of a policy that prioritizes cheap goods over national security. Now it's a crisis, just in time to fuel another round of defense spending and trade-war posturing.

And while all this geopolitical theater is playing out, the average price of a new car in America just crossed $50,000. Fifty. Thousand. Dollars. For a Nissan Rogue. At the same time, auto loan delinquencies are hitting all-time highs. It’s a perfect snapshot of our economy: a luxury goods market for the rich, and a debt-collection market for everyone else. This is a bad situation. No, 'bad' doesn't cover it—this is a slow-motion catastrophe that we're all pretending is just normal market fluctuation, even as the headlines cover Big bank earnings, Broadcom’s OpenAI chip deal, record-high car prices and more in Morning Squawk.

It’s all just… a lot. One headline after another, each one more disconnected from the reality of daily life than the last. AI chips that may or may not exist in a deal that may or may not be as big as they hint, a peace deal that isn’t peace, a trade war that we started and are now shocked by the consequences of. Maybe I'm the crazy one, but it feels like the whole system is just generating noise to distract us while the ship goes down.

So We're All Just Pretending, Then?

Look, I get it. The game is the game. You pump the stock, you announce the partnership, you leak the big, vague numbers, and you hope the hype carries you to the next quarter. But don't insult our intelligence by calling it innovation. This isn't progress. It’s a performance. It’s a desperate, high-stakes attempt to keep the illusion of infinite growth alive in a world that is very clearly hitting its limits. And we’re all sitting here, watching the show, wondering when the curtain is finally going to fall.