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CoreWeave’s rapid rise from a scrappy crypto miner to an AI infrastructure powerhouse is the kind of American hustle that ought to be celebrated — founders taking big risks, building something new, and answering demand for cutting-edge technology. But when that hustle is fueled more by borrowed billions than by patient, organic cash flow, it’s a story that should make every conservative investor sit up and pay attention. The company’s gamble is now a public spectacle: bold entrepreneurship on one hand, and a towering pile of leverage on the other.
Behind the swagger there is a blanching truth: CoreWeave has leaned on a tidal wave of financing — both debt and leases — to build capacity at breathtaking speed, which some analysts reckon amounts to roughly $24 billion to $29 billion of obligations once you count the not-yet-commenced leases and other off-balance-sheet commitments. That kind of leverage can look great while the music plays, but it becomes dangerous the moment investor appetite or AI demand softens.
Contracts with the industry’s biggest names have papered over skeptics for now — CoreWeave lists a huge revenue backlog and has inked enormous supply deals, including a sizable multi-year arrangement with OpenAI and a blockbuster pact recently reported with Meta valued at up to $14.2 billion. Those commercial relationships explain why banks and investors have been willing to push capital into the company; long-term deals give cover for heavy spending. But the mix of legally binding obligations and softer “extended backlog” items means not all of that headline number is equally reliable.
Management’s own plan is audacious: capital expenditure forecasts in the tens of billions this year to keep up with AI’s insatiable appetite for GPUs and data-center real estate. Executing that plan requires friendly credit markets and patient lenders — two things markets can withhold in a heartbeat if growth slows or margins disappoint. This isn’t abstract: records show the company anticipated spending between $20 billion and $23 billion in a single year to scale capacity and meet customer commitments.
The founders and early backers have made out handsomely — Forbes and other outlets put CoreWeave’s principals squarely in the billionaire club and show the enormous wealth that can follow a successful tech pivot and IPO. That success is American capitalism in action: risk, reward, and the ability to build something real. Still, when a founder’s fortune becomes tied to dramatic paper valuations and mountains of leverage, the risk isn’t just to wealthy insiders — it’s to the thousands of employees, suppliers, and ordinary investors who get swept up in the frenzy.
Markets have rewarded the stunt so far, sending the stock higher after each big deal, but history teaches that hot money and government-enabled cheap credit can inflate bubbles that pop hard. Conservatives should cheer innovation and competition with the big cloud monopolies, but we must also insist on market discipline: transparency in financial statements, sober underwriting, and a refusal to prop up speculative financing structures with taxpayer guarantees or regulatory forbearance. The American economy is strongest when winners win on merit, not on engineered financial alchemy.
This is a moment for clear-eyed patriotism, not cheerleading for every Silicon Valley headline. Celebrate the engineers and founders who built CoreWeave — but demand accountability from the financiers who dressed up risky leverage as growth. If we want durable prosperity for hardworking Americans, we must defend free markets that reward innovation while rooting out the moral hazard that comes when big bets are made with other people’s money and optimism is treated as a balance-sheet item.
