THE $10 TRILLION QUESTION: Damodaran Warns AI Must Hit Massive Revenue Target To Justify $2 Trillion Buildout, As Investor Calls It 'Biggest Misallocation Of Capital In History'

“If revenues level off at 250 billion, that two trillion is almost entirely going to be written off. Your revenues will have to climb from 250 billion to a much, much, much higher number. How much higher? Well, it depends on what kind of margins and profits you can make. So let's say there's a steady state 10 years from now, 15 years from now. The AI business is well established. We're looking at the collective revenues from that business. You're asking, how much would those revenues need to be to justify the two trillion invested upfront? The revenues will have to be maybe eight, 10 trillion because if you think about the profits and the expenses produced, the revenues and the profits, and the tax on the profits, you're very quickly going to start to scale the latter up to 10 trillion.”