A tangled web of deals stokes AI bubble fears in Silicon Valley

Some are worried that the rapid rise in the value of AI tech companies may be a bubble waiting to burst.

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"I know it's tempting to write the bubble story," Mr Altman told me as he sat flanked by his top lieutenants. "In fact, there are many parts of AI that I think are kind of bubbly right now."

In Silicon Valley, the debate over whether AI companies are overvalued has taken on a new urgency.

Sceptics are privately - and some now publicly - asking whether the rapid rise in the value of AI tech companies may be, at least in part, the result of what they call "financial engineering".

In other words - there are fears these companies are overvalued.