CoreWeave pays $7M a day in interest: a thread on the four ways AI data centers get financed
ccerrato147 · x · 2026-11-08
A thread unpacking why CoreWeave and Nebius lost about half their value in a month: the cost of the money behind AI data centers changed.
- Cash: Hyperscalers used to self-fund, but debt covered 9% of their building/chip spend in 2024 and 32% in the year to June (FactSet).
- Good name: Meta's Hyperion campus in Louisiana runs on $27.3B of off-balance-sheet debt with only a 4-year lease and depreciation backstop — lenders accepted it because it's Meta.
- Long lease + guarantor: OpenAI signed a 20-year lease on SoftBank SB Energy's 8 GW Ohio campus, still needing Nvidia to backstop up to $105B; SoftBank CDS hit 4.66%/yr, the highest since Oct 2022, and SB Energy's $50B IPO slipped to December or later.
- Outright borrowing: the neoclouds. CoreWeave paid $640M interest in Q2 ($7M/day), expecting up to $940M this quarter. Author's takeaway: when money gets expensive, the worst-termed borrowers go first — look at who signed the debt before the chips.
Related event: AI data centers shift to debt financing as CoreWeave, Nebius stocks halve(3 posts)→
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