CoreWeave CEO Rebuts Nvidia Circular Financing Claims as Stock Surges 12% on AI Cloud Confidence

CoreWeave CEO Calls Nvidia Circular Financing Claims 'Ridiculous,' Says Stake Too Small To Prop Up $42 Billion Company - CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV)

CoreWeave Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV) CEO Michael Intrator has forcefully rejected allegations that his company is engaged in "circular financing" with Nvidia Corp.(NASDAQ:NVDA), describing the narrative as "ridiculous" and mathematically unsound. Check out CRWV's stock price here. 'Ridiculous' Narrative In a recent appearance on the Big Technology Podcast, Intrator argued that Nvidia's minority stake in the specialized cloud provider is "de minimis" compared to CoreWeave's massive capital scale, dismissing the concerns as a distraction akin to a "fly on the b*** of the elephant." The controversy centers on claims that Nvidia invested in CoreWeave to artificially boost demand for its own chips -- effectively paying CoreWeave to buy its products. Intrator dismantled this theory by highlighting the sheer scale of CoreWeave's operations versus Nvidia's investment. While acknowledging Nvidia has invested approximately $300 million across two rounds, Intrator noted that CoreWeave has raised over $25 billion in total capital and holds a valuation of $42 billion. "I'm pretty sure that they don't think of their investment of $300 million as the secret sauce to standing up the largest company in the world," Intrator said. He emphasized that the relationship is driven by a "systemically imbalanced market" where demand for compute vastly outstrips supply, not financial engineering. 'Box' Strategy Intrator also addressed concerns regarding CoreWeave's aggressive use of debt to fuel its rapid expansion. He detailed the company's use of special purpose vehicles -- or "boxes" -- to ring-fence risk. Under this structure, revenue from investment-grade contracts, such as those with Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) or Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META), flows directly into a restricted account. This capital pays off operating expenses and lenders first before releasing any profit to CoreWeave. Intrator defended the model as a standard, low-risk approach to infrastructure building, comparable to constructing power plants or railroads. Defying Depreciation Fears Addressing skepticism about the longevity of AI hardware, Chief Strategy Officer Brian Venturo revealed that the company recently renewed a contract for older Nvidia A100 chips at 95% of their original value. Despite the release of newer, more powerful chips, CoreWeave executives argue that the "depreciation narrative" is flawed. They cite long-term contracts from sophisticated hyperscalers as proof that older hardware remains economically vital for years, debunking the idea that AI chips become obsolete in just three years. CRWV Underperforms Over Last 6 Months CoreWeave shares have fallen by 39.46% in the last six months; however, it was up 100.35% in the last year. Year-to-date, CRWV advanced 8.41% in 2026. Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings shows that CRWV maintains a weaker price trend over the short, medium, and long terms. Additional information is available here. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo courtesy: Shutterstock CRWVCoreWeave Inc$80.40-%OverviewMETAMeta Platforms Inc$653.10-%MSFTMicrosoft Corp$479.05-%NVDANVIDIA Corp$184.97-%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Stock Market Today, Jan. 12: CoreWeave Surges After CEO Rebuttal Restores Confidence in AI Cloud Model | The Motley Fool

CoreWeave (CRWV +12.48%), a cloud-based GPU infrastructure provider for AI workloads, closed Monday's session at $89.93, up 12.22%. CoreWeave IPO'd in 2025 and has grown 125% since going public. Trading volume reached 42.1 million shares, coming in about 49% above its three-month average of 28.2 million shares. During Monday's regular session, investors responded to CoreWeave's CEO commentary, new analyst coverage, and fresh AI infrastructure headlines, while watching how sustained GPU demand shapes future guidance. The S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.16%) added 0.15% to close at 6,977, while the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC +0.26%) rose 0.26% to finish at 23,734. Within cloud infrastructure services, industry peers Cloudflare (NET +1.98%) and DigitalOcean (DOCN +3.93%) gained 1.96% and 3.97%, respectively, as investors tracked AI-related network demand and evolving cloud pricing power. CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator made headlines after he and another executive spoke on a podcast addressing concerns over the useful life span of graphics processing units (GPUs) the company has accumulated. That helped push investors back into the stock with analysts backing CoreWeave as it plans to add Nvidia's (NVDA +0.04%) next-generation Rubin AI architecture to its infrastructure. Nvidia holds a meaningful minority stake in CoreWeave, which also gives investors confidence in its future growth.

CoreWeave stock surges after CEO rebuts GPU useful life concerns By Investing.com

Investing.com -- CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) stock rose 10% Monday, outperforming the broader tech sector following CEO Michael Intrator's recent podcast appearance where he addressed criticisms about the company's business model. The specific reasons for the gains weren't entirely clear, but market observers linked the movement to Intrator's comments on the Big Technology Podcast last week, where he and Chief Strategy Officer Brian Venturo rebutted arguments about GPU useful life - a concern that has weighed on AI infrastructure companies. The stock movement coincided with a Moody's Ratings report released Monday projecting that at least $3 trillion will flow into data-center-related investments over the next five years. The ratings firm identified CoreWeave among six US hyperscalers expected to collectively invest $500 billion in data centers this year alone. CoreWeave also recently announced plans to add NVIDIA Rubin technology to its AI cloud platform in the second half of 2026, positioning itself among the first cloud providers to deploy the platform for customers building agentic AI and large-scale inference workloads. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs analyst Gabriela Borges assumed coverage of CoreWeave with a Neutral rating and $86 price target, citing the company's "purpose-built architecture" as providing "a significant competitive advantage against traditional hyperscalers and other neoclouds at the high end" while noting concerns about execution risks and debt levels.