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Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS) shares extended their decline in pre-market trading Monday as CEO Arkady Volozh acknowledged tightening financing conditions for artificial intelligence infrastructure providers, echoing concerns raised by Elon Musk about the neocloud industry’s debt-dependent expansion.

Nebius CEO Acknowledges Tightening Financing Conditions

Speaking at Nvidia’s GTC Berlin conference Thursday, Volozh acknowledged that some funding channels had become unavailable, although he expressed confidence in Nebius’ financial position.

"From last week, probably some of the capital sources are temporarily closed, like asset-backed or debt market," Volozh said during an interview with Deirdre Bosa, former CNBC anchor and host of Deirdre Bosa Live.

However, Volozh maintained that financing remained manageable. "Capital is also, as I said, it’s not a problem, it’s a task," he said, emphasizing Nebius’ conservative approach.

"We have a pretty healthy balance sheet," Volozh added, explaining that customer advances and alternative financing instruments would "probably provide us enough finance to build this gigawatt at least."

Musk Warns Neoclouds Face Widespread Consolidation

Volozh’s remarks preceded Musk’s Sunday warning that debt markets "have almost entirely shut off access to money for any company that doesn’t have substantial revenue independent of AI data centers."

Musk predicted widespread neocloud failures and consolidation, contrasting their financing challenges with SpaceX’s reported $40 billion debt raise for Nvidia processors.

The SpaceX CEO’s warning follows earlier concerns about neocloud financing risks and comes despite strong demand for AI computing capacity.

Nebius Secures Billions Despite Mounting Pressure

Nebius announced Thursday that it secured a $3.5 billion financing facility from Citi to support data center construction and graphics processor purchases.

The 364-day loan initially carries interest at the Secured Overnight Financing Rate plus 2.75 percentage points. Nebius also cited more than $40 billion in long-term customer commitments.

However, Reuters reported that investors betting against five neocloud and data center companies accumulated approximately $6 billion in paper profits during October, including $2.94 billion from Nebius.

The mounting pressure follows earlier warnings about the industry’s potential shakeout, highlighting the tension between accelerating AI demand and increasingly difficult financing conditions.

Price Action: NBIS shares were down 3.1% to $153.87 in pre-market trading on Monday.

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