Billionaire investor says he used AI to write critique of former mentee Scott Bessent

Stanley Druckenmiller, a billionaire investor, said he used artificial intelligence to pen his viral Wall Street Journal op-ed in which he sharply criticized the interference of Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, in the US bond market.

Many news outlets, including the Guardian, covered the editorial, highlighting Druckenmiller’s rebuke of his former mentee, Bessent. As the story circulated online, some readers questioned rhetorical choices that resembled AI-generated text.

On Tuesday, Druckenmiller admitted to using the technology.

“I’m not embarrassed by it,” he told Notus.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page editor, Paul Gigot, defended Druckenmiller in a statement.

“The question for us is whether what we publish from contributors reflects an author’s original argument, and if the author has the standing and credibility to make it. In Stan Druckenmiller’s case, we have had a relationship with him for many years, and nobody can doubt that his op-ed is his genuine opinion,” Gigot said.

He also called AI “a fact of modern life”.

Druckenmiller further defended the choice in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “At 73 I’m kind of proud of using it,” he said, also telling the paper: “These are my ideas and I’ve been speaking about them for over 15 years, as anyone who knows me knows. Would I prefer that I was a great writer? Yes, but that’s not who I am.”

Druckenmiller, in his op-ed, opposed the US treasury doubling the size of its government debt buybacks.

The controversy comes as the media industry continues to grapple with its parameters around AI use.

A UC Berkeley math professor came under heat this month for using AI to edit an op-ed in the San Francisco Standard. Zvezdelina Stankova maintained the piece, which argued that test-blind college admissions has resulted in under-prepared students, was the result of “intensive human work”. The Standard said, to their understanding, the piece reflected the “original analysis” of Stankova and her colleagues.

In March, the New York Times cut ties with a freelance journalist, whose use of AI resulted in plagiarism from a Guardian book review. The Times added an editor’s note to the journalist’s book review, noting a violation of its standards.