Breaking: Michael Burry exposes how Microsoft is making its spending look smaller

Here's his reasoning:

1. Microsoft rents its data centers on leases that last 13 years on average

2. If you rent a building for most of its life, accounting rules count it as buying the building, so it goes into your spending numbers

3. Microsoft used to say its data centers last 15 years. A 13-year lease was most of that, so its leases counted as spending

4. Now Microsoft is saying its data centers last 25 years. The same 13-year lease is only about half of that, so it counts as rent and drops out of spending

5. That cut Microsoft's 2026 spending forecast to ~$175B, even though its CFO said the real spending plan "remains unchanged"

6. Microsoft has $329.1B of data center leases signed that haven't started yet, up 3.5x in 12 months

Burry says Microsoft is using these numbers "as a lever to get what it wants", and not one analyst asked about it