By late 2025, it’s too early to definitively judge a prediction framed as playing out “over roughly the coming decade,” and the evidence so far is mixed.

1. China’s demographics are unfolding as he expected. China’s population is now shrinking, and the working‑age share continues to fall as the society rapidly ages, a direct legacy of the one‑child policy. Official and UN‑based analyses show the working‑age population declining and the over‑60 population exceeding 300 million, with projections of continued steep demographic contraction through 2030 and beyond. (cnbc.com) This supports the premise of his argument (demographic headwinds), but not yet his downstream conclusions.

2. China’s low‑cost manufacturing dominance and global “over‑dependence” have not yet “solved themselves.” Despite these demographic pressures and some labor‑cost increases, China’s manufacturing role has, if anything, intensified: it accounts for about 29–31% of global manufacturing output and roughly 20% of world manufacturing exports, with 2024 exports slightly exceeding the combined total of the U.S., Germany, and Japan. (statista.com) China has also offset labor issues via heavy automation and domestic industrial‑robot deployment, helping preserve cost competitiveness. (ft.com) Meanwhile, “China‑plus‑one” diversification is real—production is expanding in Southeast Asia, Mexico, and elsewhere—but most analyses describe it as partial diversification rather than a full unwinding of dependence on Chinese manufacturing and inputs. (pfe.express) So by 2025, the global over‑reliance on China has not clearly “solved itself” via demographics alone.

3. Inflation and commodity prices did spike, but not in the sustained, demographic‑driven way implied. Global inflation and commodity prices surged in 2021–2022, driven largely by pandemic recovery, supply‑chain bottlenecks, and the energy shock from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, since mid‑2022, broad commodity indices have fallen sharply (around 40% from the peak by mid‑2023), and the World Bank now projects further declines in 2024–2026, with many prices returning to or below pre‑COVID levels. (worldbank.org) That is the opposite of a clear, ongoing upward push in global commodity prices attributable primarily to China’s demographics.

4. U.S. manufacturing is experiencing a notable boom, but “Rust Belt rejuvenation” is uneven. U.S. manufacturing construction has reached record levels—roughly double pre‑2020/2021 levels by early 2024—driven by the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and related industrial‑policy and infrastructure laws. (jec.senate.gov) Major semiconductor and battery investments are indeed landing in parts of the traditional industrial Midwest (e.g., large chip and EV‑supply‑chain projects in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana). (reuters.com) At the same time, research on the new “Made in America” wave finds that a disproportionate share of these dynamic, high‑tech manufacturing investments is flowing to Southern and Sun Belt metros (Phoenix, Austin, Raleigh, Houston, etc.), not just classic Rust Belt cities. (oxfordeconomics.com) So there is a reindustrialization trend, but whether it ultimately produces the broad “rejuvenation of the Rust Belt” he envisioned remains uncertain.

5. Net assessment relative to his full causal story. Some early pieces of Chamath’s thesis are aligned with observed trends (China’s demographic squeeze; partial diversification of supply chains; a significant U.S. manufacturing/investment boom), while other key elements have not materialized in the way he framed them (China’s manufacturing dominance remains very strong; global commodity prices are now falling; and the geography of U.S. reindustrialization is broader and more Sun‑Belt‑oriented than a simple Rust Belt revival). Crucially, though, his prediction was explicitly about dynamics “over roughly the coming decade,” and we are only about four years into that window. Given that central parts of his claim are inherently long‑run (demographics reshaping global manufacturing structures), there is not yet enough elapsed time to judge whether China’s over‑dependence will in fact “solve itself” and whether the ultimate pattern of U.S. reindustrialization will match his vision.

Because the forecast horizon extends to around 2030–2031 and major structural pieces are still evolving, the fairest classification today is inconclusive (too early to tell) rather than clearly right or wrong.