CoreWeave CEO responds to data center delays as stock plunges

CoreWeave Shares tumbled 13% Tuesday after CEO Mike Intrator cited delays at a third-party data center developer hitting its full-year target in its latest earnings report.

“Obviously, every part of this quarter went exactly as we planned, except for a delay in a single data center,” Intrator told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Tuesday.

He later clarified that “a singular data center provider” was more accurate.

“Some people might think it’s a single complex, but when I go over the numbers, we’re talking about multiple locations,” CNBC’s Jim Cramer said. “And it just so happens that these places are all connected by an outfit called. Basic Scientific what you’re trying to buy.”

Cramer noted delays at complexes in Texas, Oklahoma and North Carolina.

Intrator said the companies have been working together on the infrastructure for a long time and will continue to work to bring it online. It did not directly confirm that Core Scientific was the third-party provider.

CoreWeave attempted to acquire Core Scientific for $9 billion earlier this year. Core Scientific shareholders voted against the proposed deal. Core Scientific shares fell 7% on Tuesday.

During CoreWeave’s quarterly earnings call on Monday, JPMorgan Securities analyst Mark Murphy asked whether the delay was related to Core Scientific, but Intrator declined to name the company. At another point in the call, the CEO suggested that only one data center was affected and not multiple sites.

“There was an issue affecting us in one data center, but we have 41 data centers in our portfolio,” Intrator said.

At a different point in the call, CoreWeave’s CFO Nitin Agrawal said the delays were due to a “single vendor, data center provider partner.”

When reached for comment on how many sites were affected, CoreWeave did not provide a number, noting Intrator’s statements during the earnings call and “Squawk on the Street” interview.

CoreWeave, which provides infrastructure for artificial intelligence companies, announced third-quarter results on Monday, showing revenue in the period was $1.36 billion, up 134% from $583.9 million a year earlier. However, CoreWeave currently forecasts 2025 revenue to be between $5.05 billion and $5.15 billion; This is below the average analyst estimate of $5.29 billion.

Intrator told CNBC on Tuesday that CoreWeave has teams of employees working at those sites “every day” with contractors and Core Scientific to get things back on track.

“We clearly saw facility delays in Q3,” Intrator said. “CoreWeave responded by putting our own boots on the ground to make sure everything was done to move these facilities as quickly as possible.”

Intrator told analysts on Monday that the delays would not impact backlogs or realize full value from contracts.

Core Scientific did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CoreWeave is in a rush to make deals as big tech companies and AI startups race to build their own computing infrastructure.

The company announced in September that it had agreed to provide $14.2 billion in AI cloud infrastructure to Meta, just days after increasing its contract with OpenAI to $22.4 billion.