Tech investor Chamath Palihapitiya has stated that the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence could negatively impact the earnings of some companies.

In an interview with CNBC, Palihapitiya said: "In my view, it is highly likely that CEOs and CFOs of major corporations are completely unaware of the scale of uncontrolled token consumption happening within their own companies."

Palihapitiya is among a growing chorus of investors and tech executives warning that the era of unchecked AI token usage is coming to an end.

On Tuesday, the tech investor elaborated that large-scale corporate deployment of AI could drag down profits for some firms, citing a major expense that executives are having to confront which they previously "had no idea existed inside their companies."

"I think the CEOs and CFOs of most companies have almost no visibility into how much uncontrolled AI token consumption is happening inside their own companies," Palihapitiya said in the interview. "I predict we will see a scenario where a quarterly earnings report misses expectations, with earnings per share down by a few cents, and the CEO will turn to the CFO to ask: 'What went wrong?'"

Palihapitiya is the founder of venture firm Social Capital, the CEO of AI company 8090, and a host of the tech podcast All-In. He is a controversial figure in Silicon Valley; during the COVID-19 pandemic, he was a prominent promoter of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs), many of which have since collapsed, resulting in significant losses for investors.

Reflecting on those past SPAC investments on Tuesday, he stated: "The people who lost money were speculators. I do feel sorry for them, and my financial interests were not aligned with the average investor's at the time."

Palihapitiya noted that "a few of those SPAC investments were successful," but he also admitted that heavily promoting SPACs on social media was a "major mistake." Last year, he launched a new SPAC—Excellence Acquisition Corp. I (ticker: AEXA)—focused on acquiring companies in artificial intelligence, energy, defense, and decentralized finance.

In 2024, Palihapitiya founded the AI firm 8090, which is building a collaborative platform for users to jointly develop enterprise software with the help of AI agents. In June of this year, the company secured $135 million in funding led by Salesforce.

Palihapitiya is one of many voices among investors and tech leaders now cautioning that the "era of token debt," where companies encouraged unlimited employee AI use and rampant token consumption, is over. In March of this year, he revealed that his startup's annual AI-related expenses could exceed $10 million, a figure he described as "terrifying" for a startup founder.

At the time, he posted on the platform X: "Just sharing our real experience running the business. I believe many other companies are also continuously boosting revenue for AI service providers without seeing a tangible positive return on their investment."

Palihapitiya's Tuesday comments on high AI costs align with concerns raised by Palantir CEO Alex Karp. Earlier this month, Karp publicly and harshly criticized the per-token pricing models of OpenAI and Anthropic.

Karp said during an appearance on Squawk Box: "I'm not trying to disparage these companies, but this pricing model is fundamentally flawed. The prevailing mindset at many large corporations right now is: 'Use it freely,' leading to massive budgets being wasted on AI token consumption."