As of late 2025, there is not enough long‑term, population‑level evidence to say whether Chamath’s prediction has come true.

What we do see so far

• GLP‑1 drugs (Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro/Zepbound, etc.) have rapidly become more common. Estimates suggest on the order of 6–12% of U.S. adults have used anti‑obesity medicines, with GLP‑1s driving much of that increase.(columbiapsychiatry.org)
• Obesity itself has not been “replaced” as a main public‑health problem: U.S. adult obesity remains around 40%, with severe obesity still rising.(livescience.com)
• Significant issues around GLP‑1 use are emerging: common gastrointestinal side effects; concerns about muscle loss, gallbladder and pancreatic problems; high discontinuation rates (roughly half of users stop within a year) with substantial weight regain when the drugs are stopped; and cost and access inequities.(columbiapsychiatry.org) These are real and being discussed in medical and policy circles, but they are not yet on the same scale as the obesity epidemic itself.
• There is some early behavioral and societal signal (e.g., food‑waste changes, ethical debates, stigma, off‑label and cosmetic use), but current research does not show a clear, large‑scale pattern of people increasing caloric intake because they treat GLP‑1s as a “get out of jail free card.” If anything, the drugs’ main effect remains appetite reduction, and clinicians repeatedly stress that they are tools that must be combined with lifestyle change.(bu.edu)

Why this is inconclusive rather than right or wrong

Chamath’s claim is explicitly long‑term and conditional ("over time," if history is a guide), and it predicts a replacement public‑health problem driven by adaptation and behavior. GLP‑1 use only became widespread in roughly 2022–2024, so we have at most a few years of real‑world data. That is too short to judge whether:

• chronic, decades‑long use will produce new large‑scale physiological problems, and/or
• widespread moral‑hazard behavior (treating the drug as a permanent license to overeat) will offset benefits and create a new epidemic that functionally replaces today’s obesity burden.

Current evidence shows important side effects, equity issues, and high rates of weight regain on discontinuation, but these are still being characterized and managed and have not yet clearly become a new dominant public‑health crisis in place of obesity. Given the short time horizon and ongoing data collection, the fair assessment today is that the prediction’s truth value is still unknown, not yet testable.