CoreWeave paid $846 million in net interest expense last quarter, more than twice its $379 million in adjusted operating income.

CoreWeave paid $846 million in net interest expense last quarter, more than twice its $379 million in adjusted operating income. That's the number I keep coming back to from last night's earnings.

The top line was strong. Q3 revenue came in at $3.66 billion, up 168% from $1.37 billion a year ago, beating both the company's own guidance of $3.45-3.60 billion and the $3.55 billion analyst estimate. Full-year guidance moved up to $13.0-13.3 billion, and the backlog climbed to $132.5 billion from about $104 billion at the end of June.

The cost of that growth is where it gets uncomfortable. The net loss widened to $709 million from $110 million. Total debt sits at $46.9 billion, and Q4 interest expense is guided to $1.05-1.15 billion.

CEO Mike Intrator said they won't use the unsecured debt market at current yields, with 2032 bonds recently above 16%. Instead, roughly $37-39 billion of 2026 capex gets funded through loans secured against specific customer contracts, plus about $9 billion in customer prepayments expected over the next three months.

So the customer contracts, with names like Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic, are doing double duty as revenue and as collateral. The CFO is targeting adjusted net income positive in the first half of 2028. Shares are up about 14% pre-market at $55.75. My question is how much patience investors have for $1 billion-plus quarterly interest bills between now and then.

Sources:
Reuters (via Economic Times): https://www.reuters.com/business/coreweave-beats-quarterly-revenue-estimates-ai-demand-defies-growing-doubts-2026-11-10/
MLQ.ai: https://mlq.ai/news/coreweave-beats-its-own-forecast-as-revenue-jumps-168-and-raises-its-2026-outlook-while-interest-costs-climb/

Not financial advice. For informational and educational purposes only.