Bill Ackman’s $5 billion Pershing Square IPO almost flopped on day one last week, but the billionaire is already deploying the cash into an AI trade led by Meta, Alphabet and Uber.

Pershing Square USA (NYSE:PSUS) closed 18% below its $50 IPO price on April 29. Ackman blamed the drop on his decision to give retail investors their full requested allocation, leaving many holding more shares than they could afford to settle.

He said those forced sales drove the day-one slump, and bought 500,000 PSUS shares plus 800,000 of asset manager Pershing Square Inc. (NYSE:PS) himself the next day.

The Financial Times attributed the slump to weak investor demand, with the combined listing raising $5 billion against an initial $10 billion target and well below the $25 billion Ackman sought in a pulled 2024 attempt.

Ackman told CNBC this morning that the closed-end fund is roughly 35% deployed, putting close to $1.75 billion to work in what he framed as an AI-led portfolio.

Ackman Defends Zuckerberg’s AI Spending

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) sold off after Q1 earnings on questions over Mark Zuckerberg’s $115 billion to $135 billion 2026 capex guidance. Ackman called Zuckerberg an “excellent allocator of capital” and said Meta customers are reporting higher ad returns thanks to AI. Ackman built his Meta position in the fourth quarter of last year.

“Every company is an AI company today,” Ackman said. “And if you’re not, you’re going to fall behind.” The fund’s holdings include Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN).

Polymarket Pricing Backs The Bull Case

Ackman’s framing lines up with Polymarket traders, who are pricing a 23% chance the AI bubble bursts by Dec. 31. Resolution would require Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) falling 50% from its all-time high, an OpenAI or Anthropic bankruptcy, or several other extreme events.

Polymarket’s Largest Company end of December market gives Nvidia a 54% chance of holding the top spot, with Alphabet at 35.5% as Google Cloud growth narrows the market-cap gap.

Altimeter Capital’s Brad Gerstner echoed the no-bubble call on CNBC Monday, citing real revenue from hyperscaler AI spending, and repeating his prediction that Nvidia will become the first $10 trillion company.

Ackman declined to name his highest-conviction idea, comparing it to “ranking your children.” He said the market’s low-20s P/E multiple still looks cheap given today’s mega-caps are higher-quality businesses than the average company 20 years ago.

Image: Shutterstock