An AI-generated image from Grant Cardone’s May 2026 video Cardone Capital Fees EXPOSED. The screenshot depicts Cardone Capital as a publicly traded NYSE security under the fictional ticker “CDNE.” Cardone Capital is not publicly traded. The data points are fabricated. The NYSE branding is prominent at the bottom of the frame.

A Forensic Read of Grant Cardone’s Defensive Video, the AI-Generated NYSE Ticker, and the Continuing Escalation of a Comparison the Federal Appellate Court Has Already Rejected

I have published several recent articles on this blog analyzing Cardone Capital’s 1Q 2026 required SEC filings.

Cardone has now apparently responded to my published articles in a video entitled Cardone Capital Fees EXPOSED. 

What I do on my blog, which is ad-free and non-monetized, is not for clickbait as Cardone alleges. 

Grant Cardone can ask his fellow Scientologist and convicted felon David Gentile of GPB Capital if my work is clickbait or precision forensic analysis supported by legal documents and other data.   

Cardone’s  YouTube video contains fabricated NYSE imagery; a fabricated public ticker; fabricated trading data; a fabricated intraday price chart; a fabricated market capitalization; designed motion graphics projecting thirty percent annualized returns on a hybrid real estate and Bitcoin fund; and a public commitment to take Cardone Capital public in 2026.

Cardone’s Own Disclaimer

Before examining the video’s substance, the reader should see how Cardone chose to introduce it. The thumbnail Cardone Capital produced to market the video on YouTube reads, in his own words:

The thumbnail asserts that Cardone filmed the video “while driving,” “without a teleprompter,” “at highway speed,” “with no notes, no script, and no breakfast.” It then concedes: “Some figures may be slightly off. Some may be completely off.” It closes with: “We fixed them. You’re welcome.”

This is Cardone’s own written, published, self-issued acknowledgment that the video he is about to present to retail investors contains financial figures that may be inaccurate. The “We fixed them” line is rhetorical. There is no version of federal securities disclosure in which an officer of a registered SEC issuer can place a “some numbers may be completely off, we fixed them” disclaimer on promotional content that discusses fee structures, projected returns, fund performance claims, and a forthcoming IPO conversion mechanism, and have that disclaimer inoculate the content.

The legal standard for material misrepresentation under Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 turns in part on whether the speaker knew or should have known that the statements made in connection with a securities offering were false or misleading. The thumbnail is, in Cardone’s own words, an advance acknowledgment that the content may contain inaccurate financial information.

I do not need to argue, in this piece, that Cardone knew the figures in his video might be wrong. Cardone has stated it. He has stated it in writing. He has stated it as the promotional thumbnail for the video itself.

Grant Cardone himself admitted that he had been forced to sell his 2024 Bombardier Global 7500 after the Bitcoin crash. The Newsweek headline characterized him as a “Self-Proclaimed Billionaire Forced To Sell Private Jet After Bitcoin Crash.” The jet sale was a public signal of internal liquidity stress at Cardone Capital.

On May 1, 2026, I published a forensic analysis of the Cardone REIT I FY2025 Form 1-K filed the day before. In that piece, I documented that three of the eight underlying investments had been written to zero, that the Manager had positioned itself as a creditor of the property entities in the amount of $26.9 million in principal and $1.8 million in accrued interest, and that the August 8, 2025 Miami River dilution had been executed seven days after the Ninth Circuit denied rehearing en banc in Pino v. Cardone Capital. The certified federal securities class action against Grant Cardone and Cardone Capital LLC is now in active discovery.

The Fabricated Cardone IPO on Wall Street

Cardone’s video contains an AI-generated image that deserves examination on its own terms.

In an AI-generated image — which is not disclosed as AI in the video — Grant Cardone is depicted standing at what appears to be the New York Stock Exchange ceremonial bell-ringing podium. He wears a blue suit, a striped tie, and a wide smile. His right hand is raised mid-strike, holding a wooden ceremonial gavel above the bell.

Behind him, a large display reads “IPO DAY: … LISTS ON NYSE.” The NYSE logo appears prominently on a screen to his right. Green up-arrows surround him on multiple display panels. Confetti falls. Applauding figures in business attire flank him on both sides, faces turned toward him, mid-cheer. A live trading floor with active tickers fills the background to his right. The composition is the standard visual grammar of an actual NYSE listing ceremony — the kind broadcast on CNBC the morning a new public company begins trading.

There has been no IPO. Grant Cardone has not stood on the NYSE bell podium. No company under his control or affiliated with Cardone Capital is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. No S-1 registration statement has been filed with the SEC. No underwriter has been engaged. No offering has been priced. The image depicts a ceremonial event that has not occurred, presented with the visual conventions of an event that has occurred.

On close inspection, the image’s AI-generated nature reveals itself. The podium in front of Cardone bears the engraved text “WALL STREET TRADING FRIOR.” There is no such phrase on any actual NYSE podium. It is nonsense.

A trading-floor display visible over Cardone’s shoulder reads “GBIANCYNKSE.” That is also nonsense. The lettering on the secondary screens scattered through the frame produces additional garbled approximations of NYSE branding. These errors are typical of AI-generated content that approximates the visual rhythm of real text without reproducing the actual letters.

The image is the work of a generative AI system that has approximated the visual language of an NYSE bell-ringing ceremony without the underlying knowledge of what the actual text on the podium, the trading floor displays, or the institutional branding would say.

In his video, Cardone uses an AI-generated image to show his imaginary publicly-traded company outperforming tech giants; this screenshot is AI and based in a false premise: Cardone Capital is not an NYSE listed publicly traded company; it is an illiquid private equity firm owned by Grant Cardone. This image is misleading: 

The fabrication extends to the institutional branding at the bottom of the frame. What appears at normal viewing speed to be the NYSE logo reads, on close inspection, “MIYSE.” Beneath it, where an actual NYSE display would read “New York Stock Exchange” or “Listing,” the text instead reads “New YORK Capital Lstiug ciing.” Both are nonsense. They are the same class of AI artifact as the “WALL STREET TRADING FRIOR” lettering on the bell-ringing podium.

The fabricated CDNE data is also internally inconsistent. The displayed change of +$1.35 (+5.81%) implies an opening price of $23.23. The stated “OPEN” field reads $23.45 — implying a 4.82 percent intraday gain. The adjacent intraday price chart shows the stock climbing from approximately $21.48 to $24.58 — implying a 14.43 percent intraday gain. Three different opening prices, three different intraday percentage gains, presented in a single frame depicting a single trading day for a single security. The fabrication is sloppy enough that the numbers within it do not agree with each other.

One of Grant Cardone’s recent conceits is that Cardone Capital has outperformed the tech giants. However, my research shows that neither Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, nor Tim Cook have had to sell their company jets because Bitcoin crashed and their firms were down $100 million. 

Cardone published this inane graphic on Instagram:

Cardone dares to compare his debt-laden apartment-owning company with the big players. Very well.  Let’s look at some real numbers and facts. We estimate that Cardone Capital carries $3.8 billion in debt on its claimed $5.1 AUM. Now let’s look the cash on hand of the big companies to which Cardone wants to compare his debt-bloated enterprise:

Cash on hand is just one of the many reasons why the big guys are keeping their jets and investing billions in AI and AI infrastructure. Not having enough cash is why Cardone has to sell his jet — and not having enough new investors (“raw meat” as Hubbard called new people coming into Scientology) likely explains why Cardone has to give away his seminar for free: 

A $997 product moved to free is not a marketing posture, it is, in our opinion, a fundraising distress posture. The economics of giving away a $997 product for free only make sense if the value of the contact information harvested in the giveaway exceeds the value of the product, which only makes sense when the funnel needs new leads more than it needs revenue per lead.

We see the free seminar as indicating a leakage problem in Cardone’s existing investor base, and it is consistent with everything else Cardone Capital’s FY2025 1-K showed about the closed Reg A+ channel, the cash position barely covering accrued fees, and the affiliate loan stack.

The Zombie Fund Trajectory

See our article of May 9, 2026: OT8 Grant Cardone’s Non Accredited Fund Shows a 96% Collapse in Retail Fundraising.

When a private equity fund family runs out of investors, the process is not an overnight collapse. It is a slow-motion freeze known in the industry as a “zombie fund.” Investopedia, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s investor education materials, and the practitioner literature on private equity wind-down all describe the same pattern. The fund continues to exist on paper. The properties continue to be managed. The management fees continue to accrue. But the capital raising stops, the exits stall, the distributions thin, and the fund settles into a state of indefinite suspension.

In a zombie fund:

The manager continues to collect the annual management fee — typically one percent of contributed capital — regardless of fund performance. The fee is the manager’s revenue. The fund is the source.

The properties cannot be sold at favorable prices because the market conditions that would justify the original underwriting projections have not materialized, and selling at unfavorable prices would crystallize losses for the limited partners and forfeit the manager’s contingent promote.

Distributions to limited partners decline as the underlying property cash flows are increasingly consumed by debt service, capital expenditures, and the management fee itself. The fund continues to pay something, often through refinancing rather than from operations.

New capital cannot be raised because the existing investor base is no longer growing and the documented performance does not support new fundraising at the projected return levels.

The fund enters a state of indefinite suspension in which neither the manager nor the limited partners can exit. The manager cannot wind down the fund without crystallizing losses. The limited partners cannot withdraw because the partnership documents do not permit redemption.

This is the structural endpoint of the trajectory the FY2025 Cardone REIT I Form 1-K documents.

The Reg A+ retail channel for Cardone REIT I raised approximately $74.9 million between 2021 and 2023 and has been closed to new capital since the offering concluded in October 2023. The 96 percent collapse in retail fundraising my May 9 piece documented at Cardone’s newer non-accredited vehicle confirms that the retail channel has not reopened anywhere in the fund family.

Three of the eight properties in Cardone REIT I sit at zero carrying value as of December 31, 2025. The Manager has positioned itself as a senior creditor of the property entities in the amount of $26.9 million in principal and $1.8 million in accrued interest. The accrued asset management fees as of December 31, 2025 ($1.18 million) exceed the cash on hand at the REIT level ($891,265). Total members’ equity has fallen from $74.9 million in contributed capital to $31.7 million — a 57.7 percent decline on a book value basis.

The August 2025 Miami River dilution moved capital from an accredited Cardone Equity Fund (CEF 27) into refinancing existing variable-rate debt rather than into a new acquisition, reducing Cardone REIT I’s ownership interest from 15 percent to 10.82 percent without retail investor consent.

These are the operational signatures of a fund family entering the zombie phase. The exits are stalled. The retail channel is closed. The properties are written down. The accrued fees exceed the cash. The related-party loan stack has grown to nearly $30 million. The asset rotation has shifted from acquisition to refinancing-as-defense.

The defensive video must be read in this context. The IPO commitment, the tokenization announcement, the $997-to-FREE seminar giveaway, and the AI-generated imagery showing a Cardone Capital that trades on the NYSE alongside Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon are all the marketing apparatus of a sponsor trying to escape the zombie phase. The escape strategy is capital structure transformation rather than asset performance.

The IPO, if it happens, would convert the illiquid limited partnership interests into publicly traded common stock. The tokenization, if it happens, would fractionalize the existing portfolio into globally distributed digital tokens accessible to non-accredited international investors. The $997-to-FREE seminar harvests contact information from new retail prospects who have not yet encountered the documented performance record.

Each of these strategies is, in structural terms, a mechanism for the manager to monetize his contingent claims and offload his risk before the zombie state becomes permanent and visible.

The retail investor in the existing Cardone REIT I, in the existing Cardone Equity Funds, and in the existing Boca Raton hybrid fund is the bearer of the risk that the escape strategies do not succeed. The IPO may not be filed. The tokenization may face regulatory headwinds the announced timeline does not survive. The new retail funnel may not produce the $1-2 billion in 2026 fundraising the projected $40 million in fee revenue implies.

If none of the escape strategies succeed, the fund family stays where it is. The properties continue to be managed. The fees continue to accrue. The accumulated deficit continues to grow. The retail investor stays locked in.

That is the zombie phase. The defensive video is what the marketing apparatus produces when the operational apparatus is entering it.

The Cognitive Effect

The technical artifacts — the garbled lettering on the podium, the nonsense trading-floor text, the MIYSE branding, the internally inconsistent ticker data — are visible only on close inspection. A retail investor scrolling through the defensive video at normal viewing speed would not see “WALL STREET TRADING FRIOR.” They would not notice that the open price and the intraday percentage gain do not reconcile. They would not register that “MIYSE” is not “NYSE.”

They would see Cardone holding a gavel at what looks exactly like an NYSE ceremony, surrounded by applauding business professionals, with green arrows and confetti, framed by NYSE branding, against the legend “IPO DAY.” They would see Cardone Capital trading at $24.58 on the same display panel as Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon.

The cognitive effect of the imagery is to convey that an IPO has occurred or is imminent and that Cardone Capital trades as a peer of the largest companies in the world. The viewer absorbs the outcomes before the question of whether the outcomes are plausible has been raised.

This is a specific marketing technique. The technique presents a desired future outcome with the visual conventions of a past or present event, in order to bypass the viewer’s evaluative capacity. The viewer is not invited to consider whether the IPO will happen, whether the offering will be priced successfully, whether the underlying company can support a public listing, or whether the existing investor base will benefit from the conversion. The viewer is shown a successful IPO event and a successful trading day and asked to absorb both as documentary evidence of the same.

The Legal Context

The bell-ringing image and the CDNE ticker image were produced and broadcast on Grant Cardone’s official YouTube channel during a period in which Cardone is the named defendant in a certified federal securities class action whose central issue is whether his prior representations to retail investors had a reasonable basis.

The Ninth Circuit answered that question in June 2025, finding that Cardone’s prior projections likely lacked a reasonable basis and that he likely did not subjectively believe them. The defensive video’s response to that finding is to extend the projection regime into AI-generated future-state imagery, presented to the same retail audience the original projections were marketed to.

I leave it to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement staff the question of whether the use of AI-generated imagery depicting a non-existent IPO ceremony and a non-existent publicly traded security, distributed in promotional content by an officer of registered SEC issuers in connection with a forthcoming offering that has not been registered, constitutes a material misrepresentation under Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. I note here only that the images exist, that they are publicly available on Grant Cardone’s official YouTube channel, and that the IPO they depict has not occurred.