ClaimsMichael Burry

“Alphabet changed risk factor language and useful life methodology language to include "historical asset performance" and "expected technology advancements."”

Michael Burry, posting on X 5 February 2026 Post by @michaeljburry on X, 2026-02-05 (X)

Factual Economics and markets

Alphabet changed its risk factor and useful life methodology language to include "historical asset performance" and "expected technology advancements."

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

What would count as true or false

Judged as of 2026-02-05. Compare Alphabet's most recent 10-K or 10-Q filed by that date with its prior comparable filing. TRUE: the newer filing's risk-factor section and its useful-life language for property and equipment (notes or critical accounting estimates) newly include both 'historical asset performance' and 'expected technology advancements', or materially identical phrases, and these were absent from the prior filing. MOSTLY TRUE: both phrases were newly added, but only in one of the two sections, or the wording differs slightly without changing the meaning. MIXED: only one of the two phrases was newly added. MOSTLY FALSE: the phrases appear but were already present in earlier filings, with only minor rewording. FALSE: neither phrase appears in the newer filing, or both appear unchanged from earlier filings.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (4)

  1. E1 Michael Burry Flags Wording, Methodology Updates In Google Parent Alphabet’s Fresh Filing Stocktwits · 5 February 2026

    “Burry noted that Alphabet’s filing now includes “historical asset performance” and “expected technology developments,” with the latter representing a formal expression “with a different proactive connotation.””

  2. E2 Michael Burry Flags Wording, Methodology Updates In Google Parent Alphabet’s Fresh Filing Asianet Newsable (syndicating Stocktwits) · 5 February 2026

    “Burry noted that Alphabet’s filing now includes “historical asset performance” and “expected technology developments,” with the latter representing a formal expression with "a different proactive connotation.””

  3. E3 goog-20231231 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (Alphabet Inc. Form 10-K for FY2023) · 31 December 2023

    “In January 2023, we completed an assessment of the useful lives of our servers and network equipment resulting in a change in the estimated useful life of our servers and certain network equipment to six years.”

  4. E4 Alphabet (Google) - 10-K annual report 2025 CompaniesMarketCap.com

    “Date: February 4, 2026ALPHABET INC. By: /S/ SUNDAR PICHAISundar Pichai Chief Executive Officer”

Reasoning

E1 and E2 only pass on Burry's own statement that the filing now includes "historical asset performance" and "expected technology developments". Neither article quotes the filing text or compares it with the earlier filing, and the second phrase they report differs from the claim's "advancements". E3 shows the FY2023 change in server useful life but not the disputed wording, and E4 shows only the signature page of the FY2025 10-K. No evidence shows whether the risk-factor and useful-life sections newly added both phrases, so the comparison the criteria require cannot be made.

Cite this claim

Michael Burry, “Alphabet changed its risk factor and useful life methodology language to include "historical asset performance" and "expected technology advancements."” (said 5 February 2026). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_12b268a5f980, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_12b268a5f980

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

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All of them

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