Coreweave CEO defends AI circular deals as ‘working together’

Summary

It’s been quite the year for Coreweave. In March, the AI cloud infrastructure provider went public in one of the biggest and most anticipated IPOs of the year that didn’t live up to its hype. Another setback took place in October, when a planned acquisition of the cloud provider’s business partner, Core Scientific, faltered due to skepticism from the acquisition target’s shareholders. In the meantime, the firm has acquired a number of different companies, its stock has gone up and down, and it’s been both criticized and lauded for its role in the booming AI data center market. In an interview at Fortune’s AI Brainstorm summit in San Francisco on Tuesday, Coreweave’s co-founder and CEO, Michael Intrator, defended his company’s performance from critics, noting that it was in the midst of creating a “new business model” for how cloud computing can be built and run. Their collection of Nvidia GPUs is so valuable, they borrow against it to help finance their business. The executive seemed to imply: If you’re charting a new path, you’re destined to encounter some road bumps along the way. “I think people are myopic a lot of times,” Intrator said, when questioned about his company’s occasionally unstable stock price. “Yes, it is see-sawing,” he admitted, while noting that the Coreweave IPO took place not long before President Trump’s tariffs went into effect—a notably uncertain moment for the overall economy. “We came out into one of the most challenging environments, right around Liberation Day and, in spite of the incredible headwinds, were able to launch a successful IPO,” the CEO told Brainstorm editorial director Andrew Nusca. “I couldn’t be prouder of what the company has accomplished,” he added. Coreweave’s stock may have debuted amidst the economic doldrums of March but its price has gone on quite the journey since then. It debuted at $40 and, over the past eight months, has climbed to well over $150, but currently rests at around $90. Its more wary critics have co...