By Mark Smith
The AI gold rush hit a snag yesterday when Core Scientific shareholders torpedoed a $9 billion buyout from cloud powerhouse CoreWeave, spotlighting frothy valuations in the sector. In a swift pivot, CoreWeave snapped up Marimo, a nimble open-source Python notebook tool, signaling a shift from mega-data center grabs to developer-friendly AI innovations. Amid soaring Google trends for “CoreWeave acquisition failure,” “AI mania 2025,” “Core Scientific rejection,” “Marimo buyout,” and “Python notebook AI tools,” investors are left pondering if the hype train is derailing.
The drama unfolded at a special shareholder meeting on October 30, 2025, where Core Scientific’s owners overwhelmingly rejected the all-stock merger pact inked back in July. Under the terms, each Core Scientific share would swap for 0.1235 CoreWeave Class A shares, pegging the deal at roughly $9 billion based on then-current prices. But dissent brewed early: Activist investor Two Seas Capital, Core Scientific’s largest active stakeholder, blasted the fixed exchange ratio as a risk-laden gamble on CoreWeave’s volatile stock, which has ballooned from a $14 billion IPO valuation in March 2025 to $66 billion today. Proxy advisor Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) piled on, urging a “no” vote due to the undervaluation—Core Scientific’s shares had surged 50% since the announcement, trading at a premium to the offer.
CoreWeave, backed by Nvidia and riding high on a $10 billion, 12-year hosting pact with Core Scientific for AI workloads, called the deal a “nice to have” rather than essential, per CEO Michael Intrator. Post-rejection, Core Scientific’s stock jumped 15% to a $6.6 billion market cap, with Macquarie analysts upgrading it to “outperform” and forecasting standalone growth via bitcoin mining pivots and data center expansions. This marks CoreWeave’s second swing and miss at the target—a $5 billion cash bid in June 2024 also fizzled.
Less than 24 hours later, CoreWeave struck back with the Marimo acquisition, terms undisclosed but PitchBook pegging the startup’s prior funding at $5 million. Marimo’s reactive notebooks—think Jupyter on steroids, blending code, visuals, and text for seamless AI prototyping—will plug straight into CoreWeave’s cloud, supercharging workflows from model training to deployment. “We’re unifying the generative AI developer stack, from infra to innovation,” crowed Brian Venturo, CoreWeave’s co-founder and chief strategy officer, in the announcement. Morgan Stanley advised Marimo on the exit.
Wall Street watchers see this as Exhibit A for AI bubble jitters. “Shareholder pushback on inflated multiples is the canary in the coal mine—deals like this expose the mania,” says Daniel Morgan, a Morningstar equity strategist, who notes CoreWeave’s aggressive 2025 spree (including OpenPipe and Weights & Biases) now totals over $15 billion in bets. Social media lit up: X threads under #AIBubble racked up 20,000 engagements, with one viral post from a Silicon Valley VC quipping, “CoreWeave dodging a $9B bullet to grab a $5M gem? Smart money moves up the stack.” Reddit’s r/MachineLearning forum buzzed with devs praising Marimo’s open-source ethos, one thread hitting 1,200 upvotes: “Finally, notebooks that don’t crash on big datasets—CoreWeave gets it.”
For U.S. tech enthusiasts and investors, the fallout packs a punch. Economically, it cools the $500 billion data center frenzy, potentially easing power grid strains in hotspots like Texas while redirecting capital to nimbler tools that could spawn the next ChatGPT. Lifestyle perks for coders? Faster AI experimentation means less debugging drudgery, more time for that side hustle or family coding nights. Politically, as Biden-era chip subsidies fuel domestic AI, this underscores antitrust eyes on mega-mergers—expect FTC scrutiny on future hyperscaler plays. Tech-wise, Marimo’s integration could democratize AI dev, leveling the field for startups against Big Tech behemoths.
As “CoreWeave acquisition failure,” “AI mania 2025,” “Core Scientific rejection,” “Marimo buyout,” and “Python notebook AI tools” dominate search charts, CoreWeave’s quick rebound hints at resilience in a maturing AI landscape. With a $55 billion backlog and Nvidia in its corner, the hyperscaler eyes more tuck-ins to fortify its end-to-end platform—while Core Scientific charts an independent course toward $1 billion in 2026 revenue. The bubble may wobble, but the buildout rolls on.
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