Cuban warns Nvidia is becoming AI’s funding engine

Mark Cuban raised concerns about AI financing in a July 28 post on X, comparing Nvidia’s role to the dot-com era’s IPO market and describing the company as the sector’s IPO, “funding everyone and anyone.” The point was not that Nvidia takes companies public, but that its investments are helping fund model developers, cloud operators, suppliers, and other companies tied to AI infrastructure.

Nvidia exited the first quarter of fiscal 2027 (ending April 26, 2026) with $42.3 billion of private investments and another $27 billion of contingent investment commitments. Its portfolio includes OpenAI, Anthropic, CoreWeave, Nebius Group, Intel, Synopsys, Nokia, and Coherent. Some deals could benefit Nvidia if portfolio companies gain value and buy more Nvidia technology, but the investment activity alone does not prove Nvidia is financing its own sales.

The financing risk is sharper for companies that must keep raising money to expand. CoreWeave generated nearly $2.1 billion in revenue but spent $6.8 billion on capital expenditures in the first quarter of 2026 (ending March 31, 2026), while Nebius reported $399 million in revenue and nearly $2.5 billion in capital expenditures. Both have significant future demand, including CoreWeave’s $99.4 billion revenue backlog and Nebius’s nearly $4.8 billion of deferred revenue, but must fund GPUs and data centers before much of that cash arrives.