My theory on this is he is trying to leverage contrarions. He knows how unpopular he is whether or not he admits it publicly. He wants to boost the concept of AI and talking about AI, and help continue it's constituent wreckless spending just a liiiiitle while longer by making it rebellious to talk about. If that bubble pops on his watch his legacy will take a huge hit. He's forbidden fruiting something that smells like a corpse, walks like a corpse, and quacks like a corpse.

Edit: Ultimately he is doing what he did when covid hit. How he botched covid is similar to how he's trying to botch the economic equivalent of covid brewing that is over investment in AI. By muddying the conversation and dictating inane talking points he's hoping to smoke bomb out of the whole situation.