Jim Chanos, the long-admired short-seller, was on a boat in the Mediterranean when I called him earlier this week, shortly after Meta delivered another gangbusters earnings report. Other investors were practically euphoric: Meta’s quarterly revenue had grown 22 percent year over year, to $47.52 billion, fueled by surprisingly robust advertising income. The stock is now up some 30 percent so far in 2025, and Meta’s market capitalization is closing in on $2 trillion, boosting Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth to more than $260 billion. Pretty much everyone, it seems, was hailing Zuckerberg as a genius for his timely pivot toward A.I.