CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Rally as AI Slowdown Talk Lifts Cybersecurity

Insider Monkey·20 Sep 2026·

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Cybersecurity stocks rallied on September 14 as money rotated out of AI chip names and into security software, with Palo Alto Networks rising as much as 13% and CrowdStrike gaining nearly 14% while NVIDIA and its chipmaking counterparts fell. The move followed an essay published September 12 by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei titled "We Must Pace the Frontier," in which he argued that AI development should be slowed to manage risks including loss of control over autonomous systems, AI-enabled cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and broader economic upheaval. OpenAI's Sam Altman said on X that he agreed "with Dario that we need to pace the frontier," Elon Musk said "Dario is right," and Google DeepMind head Demis Hassabis also voiced public agreement. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz rejected the slowdown concept, saying frontier labs will keep advancing regardless and that the security industry's role is to make that progress safer, after which CNBC's Jim Cramer called CrowdStrike a "MUST BUY." Institutional interest had already been building: CrowdStrike's hedge fund ownership rose from 79 funds in the first quarter to 89 in the second, with short interest at 2.46% of float, while Palo Alto Networks went from 87 to 89 funds with short interest at 2.64%.

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