U.S. technology and artificial intelligence stocks declined in pre-market trading Monday after prominent industry leaders raised fresh concerns about the rapid pace of AI development over the weekend. While equities slid, cryptocurrencies moved higher, with Bitcoin gaining approximately 1% to $77,800 and Ether rising 1% to $2,500.
AI Leaders Urge Caution on Development Speed
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for the industry to slow development to allow safety measures to catch up. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk, whose xAI developed Grok, voiced agreement with the sentiment. The coordinated warnings from three of the sector’s most influential figures appeared to rattle investor confidence in the near-term trajectory of AI-related equities.
IPO Developments Add to Sector Narrative
Amid the safety debate, Anthropic reportedly selected Nasdaq for its anticipated initial public offering. Separately, Altman confirmed that OpenAI will not go public in 2026, removing a potential near-term catalyst that some market participants had speculated about.
Global Markets React to AI Sentiment Shift
South Korea’s Kospi index fell 3%, with SK Hynix—a key supplier of memory chips used in AI infrastructure—dropping 6%. The selloff extended to U.S. pre-market trading, where the Invesco QQQ ETF, which tracks the Nasdaq 100 index, declined 1.5%.
Neocloud and Chipmakers Lead Declines
Neocloud providers Nebius and CoreWeave fell 6% and 5%, respectively. Chipmakers SanDisk and Intel each lost 5%, reflecting broad-based concern across the AI hardware and infrastructure supply chain.
