Michael Burry’s Scion Asset Management bought into Microsoft during the fourth quarter of 2025, a period when the software giant’s shares were nursing a double-digit decline from their summer highs. The new stake, which did not exist in Scion’s prior quarterly disclosure, surfaced in a 13F filing submitted to the SEC in February 2026, covering holdings as of December 31, 2025.
One quarter earlier, Microsoft was nowhere in Scion’s portfolio. The fund’s Q3 2025 information table, which detailed holdings as of September 30, listed no MSFT among its long equity or options positions. That makes the fourth quarter the initiation window, though the filing does not specify the exact purchase date or average cost.
A 15% drawdown opened the door
Microsoft shares spent much of the second half of 2025 sliding. MSFT peaked near $468 in July before a sustained pullback driven by investor anxiety over the pace of returns from the company’s tens of billions of dollars in AI infrastructure spending, combined with a broader rotation away from mega-cap tech. By mid-December, shares were trading in the low $400s, roughly 15% off the highs.
That kind of drawdown in a company generating north of $60 billion in operating cash flow during its fiscal year ended June 2025 is exactly the setup Burry has gravitated toward throughout his career. He built his reputation on the pre-2008 housing short chronicled in “The Big Short,” but the bulk of his subsequent work at Scion has been classic contrarian value investing: buying fundamentally strong businesses when the market’s mood turns sour.
What the 13F shows and what it hides
A 13F is a quarterly snapshot, not a trading diary. It confirms that Scion held Microsoft shares on December 31, 2025, and discloses the share count and market value of that position. However, because the specific figures from the Q4 2025 filing have not been independently verified for this article, they are not reproduced here. Readers can review the exact share count, position value, and total portfolio value directly on Scion’s EDGAR page.
The filing cannot tell us whether Burry bought in October, November, or December, what he paid, or why he pulled the trigger. Just as important, 13F filings exclude short positions, most derivatives, and foreign-listed securities. Burry could be running offsetting hedges or options strategies around the Microsoft stake that simply do not appear in this document. The long position is confirmed; the full picture of how Scion is positioned around MSFT is not.
A familiar playbook with big tech
Burry has cycled through large-cap tech names before. Scion’s filings over the past several years have shown positions in Alphabet, Amazon, and a handful of Chinese internet companies, most held for just one or two quarters before being sold. The fund runs a concentrated, high-turnover book, and a name that appears in one filing frequently vanishes by the next.
The fund’s size reinforces that point. Scion manages a modest pool of capital compared to institutional giants like Berkshire Hathaway or Bridgewater Associates, and its total reported long portfolio in recent filings has been well under $200 million. The exact total from the Q4 2025 filing is available on EDGAR but has not been independently confirmed for this article. Burry’s trades attract attention far out of proportion to the dollars behind them, largely because of his track record and public profile.
That said, the signal is not meaningless. A well-known contrarian stepping into Microsoft after a meaningful pullback tells you that at least one experienced, skepticism-driven investor looked at the decline and saw a price worth paying rather than a deteriorating business.
Scion’s Q1 2026 filing will reveal whether the bet survived
Scion’s Q1 2026 13F, due by mid-May 2026, will reveal whether Burry held the Microsoft position through the first three months of the year, added to it, or already moved on. Given his history, any of those outcomes is plausible.
Investors tempted to follow the trade should keep the timeline in mind. By the time a 13F becomes public, the positions it describes are at least 45 days old. The filing reflects where Burry stood at year-end 2025, not where he stands in the spring of 2026. Treating stale snapshots as live recommendations is a common mistake with 13F data, and one that experienced portfolio managers routinely warn against.
What the disclosure does establish is narrow but concrete: Scion Asset Management owned Microsoft shares on the last day of 2025 after owning none on the last day of the prior quarter. Whether that bet proves well-timed will hinge on Microsoft’s ability to convert its enormous AI and cloud investments into earnings growth through 2026, not on the fame of the investor who placed it.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
