Chris Hughes, Columnist

Someone Will Look Dumb in the $9 Billion AI Merger

Data center provider Core Scientific is trading at a big discount to CoreWeave’s bid. The gap should narrow, but nobody knows how.

July 9, 2025 at 6:30 AM EDT

By Chris Hughes

Chris Hughes is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals. Previously, he worked for Reuters Breakingviews, the Financial Times and the Independent newspaper.

Mergers can be easy — or not. — Mergers can be easy — or not.
Photographer: Henny Ray Abrams/AFP via Getty Images

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Take a pair of one-time crypto miners, modify their business strategies, add in some retail investors and agree to an all-stock merger. CoreWeave Inc.’s takeover of smaller Core Scientific Inc. is no ordinary piece of deal-making. The journey from here should be fun to watch.

Both have shifted focus from crypto to the data centers facilitating the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. Livingston, New Jersey-based CoreWeave went public just a few months ago and its shares climbed to around four times their debut price for a market capitalization exceeding $75 billion. On Monday, it took advantage of that surge to strike a $9 billion all-stock deal for Core Scientific of Dover, Delaware.