Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, and other top investors and business leaders are ringing the inflation alarm. Here are their gravest warnings so far.

October 30, 2021

Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, and other top investors and business leaders are ringing the inflation alarm. Here are their gravest warnings so far.

Warren Buffett and Elon Musk — Warren Buffett (left) and Elon Musk (right).
Alex Wong/Getty, REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, and other business leaders have issued inflation warnings.
Top investors including Bill Ackman and Paul Tudor Jones have flagged rising prices too.
Many of them have blamed inflation on aggressive federal stimulus during the pandemic.

Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, and other business leaders and investors have sounded the alarm on inflation in recent months.

Michael Burry, Jack Dorsey, and Paul Tudor Jones have also warned of accelerating price increases. They have overwhelmingly blamed the federal government, after officials pumped trillions of dollars into the US economy during the pandemic, failed to raised interest rates, and have delayed withdrawing support.

Here are the most striking warnings about inflation so far from 10 top investors and CEOs:

Warren Buffett

"We're seeing very substantial inflation," Buffett disclosed during Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting in May.

"The costs are just up, up, up," the famed investor and Berkshire CEO said about his company's homebuilding operations.

Buffett has repeatedly underscored the danger of inflation, once describing it as a "gigantic corporate tapeworm" that eats up company's cash and erodes investors' real returns.

Michael Burry

Burry rang the inflation alarm as early as April 2020, and doubled down on his warnings in February of this year.

"Prepare for #inflation," the Scion Asset Management boss tweeted. "#Inflation pressure building."

The investor — whose billion-dollar bet against the housing bubble was immortalized in the book and the movie "The Big Short" — has cautioned the current situation could rival America's inflationary crisis in the 1970s, and Germany's hyperinflation in the 1920s.

Elon Musk

As the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has had a front-row seat to component shortages and the rising prices of microchips and other items.

"I don't know about long-term, but short-term we are seeing strong inflationary pressure," he recently noted.

Jack Dorsey

The Twitter cofounder and CEO recently issued one of the most dire warnings about rising prices so far.

"Hyperinflation is going to change everything," Dorsey tweeted. "It's happening."

"It will happen in the US soon, and so the world," he added.

Bill Ackman

Ackman keeps a close eye on prices as he counts hotels, restaurants, retailers, and real-estate developers among his holdings.

"There's very, very significant inflation," the investor noted in July. "You're seeing house prices go way up — you have to have a friend who knows the CEO in order to buy a home."

The Pershing Square chief added that stimulus checks have forced hotels and restaurants to raise wages in order to attract workers, and predicted the hikes would continue.

Paul Tudor Jones

"The number one issue facing the man on the street, as well as investors, is inflation," Jones recently said.

"It's probably the single biggest threat to financial markets and society in general," the legendary trader and founder of Tudor Investment Corporation continued.

Jones predicted stubborn inflation, urged people not to dismiss the issue, and accused the Federal Reserve of feeding the beast with its expansionary policies.

Jeff Gundlach

The investor known as the "Bond King" is bracing for continued price increases.

"It's almost certain that we're going to get persistently high inflation," Gundlach recently said. "We don't think inflation is going below 4% anytime in 2022."

The DoubleLine Capital boss cited upward pressure on wages and the rising cost of housing as key drivers of further inflation.

Carl Icahn

Rising prices could precipitate a market crash, the Icahn & Company founder recently warned.

"Inflation is taking hold in a bad way," Icahn said. "I really think there will be a crisis the way we're going, the way we're printing money, the way we're going into inflation."

Leon Cooperman

The Omega Advisors boss expects prices to keep rising as workers keep demanding more money.

"The Fed is wrong on inflation," Cooperman said in September. "This idea that inflation is transitory is a pipe dream. 65% of business costs are labor. You know anybody working for less money in this environment?"

John Paulson

Paulson, who made more than $15 billion for his hedge fund by betting against the mid-2000s housing bubble, warned in August that inflation could be far worse than experts have predicted.

"Our viewpoint is the markets are currently too complacent regarding inflation," he said. "We have inflation coming well in excess of what the current expectations are."

Paulson added that higher inflation could spur investors to dump fixed-income assets and cash in favor of gold, potentially spiking the metal's price.

David Einhorn

The Greenlight Capital boss recently blamed inflation on shortages caused by a lack of investment in manufacturing, shipping, and other "real-world" industries.

"There are too many dollars chasing too few goods and services," Einhorn said. "We have reached a structural change in inflation."

Mario Gabelli

The billionaire boss of Gamco Investors recently told Insider that he believes inflation is accelerating, and he expects sustained wage inflation as people keep demanding higher salaries in the face of rising prices.

In particular, Gabelli underlined the psychological impact of higher gasoline prices on consumers, and suggested that could exert upward pressure on wages.

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