Former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli called quantum computing stocks IonQ Inc. IONQ and Rigetti Computing Inc. RGTI “one of the best shorts” of his career, despite both companies seeing substantial gains in recent trading sessions.
What Happened: Shkreli, posting on X on Tuesday, criticized the operational status of quantum computers from both companies, sharing an Amazon Web Services Braket dashboard showing multiple quantum processing units offline.
The dashboard revealed that all three of IonQ’s quantum devices and both of Rigetti’s systems were either offline or experiencing errors.
This bearish stance comes as IONQ shares have surged 286% over the past year, while RGTI stock has skyrocketed more than 1,170%.
On Tuesday alone, RGTI jumped 42.22% to close at $13.98, while IONQ gained 16.51% to end at $45.31, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
Why It Matters: Shkreli’s comments align with recent skepticism from tech industry leaders about quantum computing’s near-term potential. Nvidia Corp. NVDA CEO Jensen Huang and Meta Platforms Inc. META CEO Mark Zuckerberg both suggested quantum computing applications may be 15 to 20 years away from practical implementation.
Shkreli, known as “Pharma Bro” from his controversial tenure as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals where he raised an antiparasitic drug’s price by 5,455%, was convicted of securities fraud in 2017 and carries a lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry.
The AWS Braket service, which provides access to quantum computing hardware from various manufacturers, showed only four out of ten total quantum devices were operational at the time of Shkreli’s post, with Amazon’s own classical quantum simulators among the few systems showing “online” status.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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