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Cerebras Systems Inc. exploded onto Wall Street Thursday in the largest U.S. technology IPO since Uber’s 2019 debut, with shares of the artificial-intelligence chipmaker surging 68% on their first trading day and instantly turning co-founder and Chief Executive Andrew Feldman into a multibillionaire.

The Silicon Valley AI hardware and cloud-computing company priced its IPO Wednesday night at $185 per share — well above the originally expected $150-to-$160 range — before opening Thursday morning at $350, climbing as high as $386, and ultimately closing at $311.07.

At the closing price, Cerebras commanded a market valuation of roughly $95 billion, instantly becoming one of the most valuable pure-play AI infrastructure companies in public markets outside of NVIDIA.

The offering raised approximately $5.55 billion, with underwriting banks including Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Barclays, and UBS holding an option to sell an additional 4.5 million shares that could lift total proceeds above $6.3 billion.

The deal marks the largest American technology IPO since Uber Technologies went public in 2019 and the first major pure-play AI chip listing to hit public markets during the current artificial-intelligence boom.

For Wall Street, the offering also signals a dramatic reopening of the technology IPO market after years of sluggish activity following the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate-hiking cycle beginning in 2022.

Andrew Feldman Becomes Billionaire

The IPO instantly transformed Cerebras co-founder Andrew Feldman into one of Silicon Valley’s newest billionaires.

According to SEC filings, Feldman owns approximately 10.3 million shares, or roughly 5.5% of the company, giving him a paper fortune worth approximately $3.2 billion at Thursday’s close.

Feldman did not sell shares in the offering.

Cerebras co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Sean Lie also crossed billionaire status, with his holdings valued near $1.7 billion.

Speaking Thursday on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Feldman said Cerebras had reached a scale and maturity level that justified entering public markets as demand for AI infrastructure accelerates globally.

“This market opportunity is enormous,” Feldman said. “We believe we are still in the very early innings.”

Feldman previously founded microserver company SeaMicro Inc., which was acquired by Advanced Micro Devices in 2012 for roughly $334 million.

Massive AI Contracts Drive Growth

The financial performance behind the IPO has improved dramatically over the past year.

Cerebras reported revenue growth of 76% last year to approximately $510 million and swung to net income of $88 million from a loss exceeding $480 million the prior year.

Much of the turnaround stemmed from major AI-computing contracts signed over the past 18 months.

The company’s most significant deal came in January, when Cerebras secured a multi-year agreement with OpenAI reportedly worth more than $20 billion for 750 megawatts of AI compute capacity.

Cerebras also maintains partnerships with Amazon Web Services and G42, the Abu Dhabi-based artificial-intelligence company backed by Microsoft.

G42 previously accounted for nearly 80% of Cerebras’ chip sales, creating concentration concerns that nearly derailed the IPO process.

National Security Review Nearly Halted IPO

Cerebras originally filed for its public offering in September 2024 but delayed the process after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States opened a national-security review tied to the company’s relationship with G42.

The review was ultimately closed without action, allowing the IPO to proceed.

In the interim, Cerebras completed a private fundraising round in February 2026 valuing the company at approximately $23.1 billion.

AMD participated in that financing round.

Bloomberg also reported earlier this month that both Arm Holdings and SoftBank Group explored acquiring Cerebras before the IPO, though the company declined to comment publicly on the reports.

Early Investors Score Massive Gains

The IPO generated enormous paper gains for Cerebras’ early investors.

Venture capital firm Benchmark, which co-led the company’s Series A financing, now holds shares worth approximately $5.5 billion.

Foundation Capital owns stock valued near $4.8 billion, while Fidelity Investments controls holdings worth roughly $3.8 billion.

Eclipse Ventures emerged with a stake valued at approximately $2.5 billion.

Among individual investors, OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman holds shares worth roughly $27.8 million, while OpenAI President Greg Brockman owns shares valued near $24.2 million.

Intel Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan was also among the company’s early backers.

A Direct Challenge to NVIDIA

Cerebras has positioned itself as one of the most serious challengers to NVIDIA in AI computing infrastructure.

The company claims its flagship Wafer Scale Engine 3 chip delivers superior performance and lower operating costs for AI inference workloads — the computing process used to run AI models in real time after training.

Inference has rapidly become one of the fastest-growing segments of the AI market as businesses deploy large-language models into commercial products and enterprise systems.

The debut comes amid an extraordinary rally across the broader AI infrastructure sector.

NVIDIA reached fresh all-time highs Thursday, while shares of AMD, Intel, and Micron Technology have surged in recent weeks as investors continue pouring money into AI-related companies.

IPO Market Reawakens

Wall Street increasingly sees the Cerebras offering as the beginning — not the peak — of a new technology IPO cycle centered around artificial intelligence.

Several massive offerings are already expected to follow.

SpaceX, which absorbed Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI earlier this year, is reportedly preparing a new share sale that could value the company near $75 billion.

Meanwhile, OpenAI and Anthropic — both privately valued near or above $1 trillion in secondary markets — are widely expected to explore public offerings in the coming year.

After four years of frozen IPO markets and cautious investor sentiment, Cerebras may have delivered the clearest sign yet that Wall Street’s appetite for high-growth technology offerings has fully returned.

— JBizNews Desk

© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.

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U.S. stocks opened sharply lower Tuesday morning after a hotter-than-expected April inflation report and escalating tensions surrounding Iran pushed oil prices above $102 a barrel, reigniting fears that the Federal Reserve may be forced to keep interest rates elevated far longer than Wall Street anticipated.

The early selloff reflected growing investor concern that rising energy prices tied to the ongoing Iran conflict are now spilling directly into broader consumer inflation — complicating the outlook for both markets and the U.S. economy heading into the second half of 2026.

At the opening bell, the S&P 500 fell 0.60% to 7,368.53, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 250 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite declined 0.97% to 26,017, leading broader market weakness. The Russell 2000 small-cap index slid 1.45% as investors rotated away from risk assets.

Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 4.43%, the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) rose to 18.72, and crude oil surged higher, with WTI crude jumping above $102 per barrel and Brent crude topping $103. Bitcoin traded below $80,800, while gold weakened as traders shifted toward cash and defensive positioning.

The catalyst was the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report released Tuesday morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which showed inflation accelerating significantly faster than economists expected.

Headline CPI rose a seasonally adjusted 0.6% in April and 3.8% year-over-year — the highest annual inflation rate since May 2023. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.4% for the month and 2.8% annually, both above Wall Street consensus estimates and still well above the Federal Reserve’s long-term 2% target.

The data immediately triggered a sharp repricing across interest-rate markets, with traders rapidly dialing back expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts later this year.

“Inflation is moving higher again as the war in Iran — and the associated closing of the Strait of Hormuz — is impacting both the headline number as expected, but also the core,” said Chris Zaccarelli, Chief Investment Officer at Northlight Asset Management. “Given that inflation is heading in the wrong direction and the labor market is holding up, it’s very unlikely that the Fed will be able to lower interest rates any time soon.”

Some traders are now beginning to openly discuss the possibility that the Fed could eventually consider additional rate hikes in 2027 if energy-driven inflation becomes more deeply embedded throughout the economy.

The geopolitical backdrop worsened overnight after President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s latest ceasefire and peace proposal submitted through Pakistani mediators, keeping pressure on already strained global energy markets and adding fresh uncertainty to Wall Street’s outlook.

The Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical oil shipping corridors, continues operating at sharply reduced capacity amid the ongoing U.S. naval blockade targeting Iranian exports and regional military infrastructure. Energy traders increasingly fear prolonged disruptions could keep oil prices elevated well into the summer travel season, placing additional pressure on gasoline prices, transportation costs, and consumer spending.

Markets are also closely watching Trump’s scheduled trip to Beijing later Tuesday, where he is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on May 13 and 14. Investors are looking for signs that the administration may attempt to separate the Iran crisis from broader U.S.-China economic negotiations involving trade, technology restrictions, and global supply chains.

Beyond the macro headlines, corporate earnings and analyst actions drove sharp individual stock moves across Wall Street.

Wendy’s surged more than 23% after the Financial Times reported that activist investor Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management is exploring a possible take-private bid for the fast-food chain.

PACS Group jumped 22.3% after reporting stronger-than-expected first-quarter earnings and authorizing a $250 million stock buyback program.

Biotech company MacroGenics climbed 23.4% after announcing the sale of its manufacturing operations to Bora Pharmaceutical, while Harmonic rose 13% after earnings and revenue exceeded analyst expectations.

On the downside, software company GitLab fell more than 11% after Chief Executive Bill Staples unveiled a sweeping restructuring tied to the company’s pivot toward “agentic AI,” including layoffs, management reductions, and a geographic downsizing strategy.

ZoomInfo Technologies plunged 33% after slashing full-year revenue guidance, while Hims & Hers Health and AST SpaceMobile also posted steep declines following disappointing forward outlooks.

Wall Street strategists remain divided over whether the current pullback represents a temporary inflation scare or the beginning of a broader repricing across risk assets.

In a mid-year outlook released Monday, JPMorgan Private Bank told clients that “the AI supercycle may just be getting started,” while economists at Goldman Sachs reduced their estimated probability of a U.S. recession over the next 12 months to 25%, citing resilient domestic demand and strong corporate investment trends.

But traders increasingly acknowledge that those bullish forecasts may depend heavily on whether inflation stabilizes — and whether the geopolitical crisis surrounding Iran and global oil supplies begins to ease.

For now, Wall Street appears to be entering a far more volatile phase where inflation, energy prices, and geopolitics are once again driving markets simultaneously — a combination investors have not faced at this intensity since the inflation shocks that rattled the global economy earlier this decade.

JBizNews Desk
© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved.

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PJT Partners CEO Paul Taubman Tells the Milken Conference What the Industry Doesn’t Want to Hear
Beverly Hills, Calif

By JBizNews Desk | Beverly Hills, Calif. — May 6, 2026

Billions of dollars are flowing out of private credit funds as retail investors confront a reality the industry is now openly acknowledging: many of these products were never designed to provide easy access to cash.

Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference, PJT Partners CEO Paul Taubman delivered a blunt assessment of the shift underway. “Retail clearly is going to stop fueling the growth in AUM for private credit,” he said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “There’s an increasing realization it’s an institutional product, not a retail product.” He described the situation as, at its core, a messaging failure — a gap between what investors were sold and what they actually owned.

His remarks reflect a broader pullback across a market that ballooned to roughly $1.8 trillion globally, fueled in part by aggressive marketing to individual investors beginning in 2022.

What Went Wrong

Private credit — direct lending to companies outside traditional banks — was repackaged by major firms including Blackstone, Blue Owl Capital, and Ares Management into semi-liquid funds promising annual returns of 8% to 12%, alongside periodic redemption windows.

The structure carried a fundamental mismatch. The underlying loans are long-term and illiquid by design, while investors were offered limited but recurring opportunities to withdraw cash. When redemption requests surged, that mismatch became unavoidable.

Blackstone’s flagship $82 billion private credit fund faced withdrawal requests totaling about 7.9% of assets — roughly $3.8 billion — in a single quarter. Blue Owl Capital responded to similar pressures by halting standard quarterly liquidity in one of its funds, shifting instead to periodic payouts tied to asset sales.

Even institutional investors have begun reducing exposure. Brown University’s endowment cut its position in a major private credit fund by more than half in early 2026, while Royal Bank of Canada’s asset management arm launched a public debt alternative aimed at investors seeking more liquid options.

Why Investors Got Hurt

Consumer advocates have long warned that private credit’s structure — including leverage, limited transparency, and restricted liquidity — makes it difficult for retail investors to fully assess risk.

“When you deal with retail investors, the level of protection needs to be amplified,” Paul Taubman said, underscoring the growing concern that these products were not suited for a broad individual investor base.

The pressure extends beyond liquidity. Analysts have raised concerns about loan quality in sectors that expanded rapidly during the boom years, particularly technology and software companies now facing margin compression. Some market observers have described a wave of “tourist” investors — those who entered during peak enthusiasm and are now exiting at a loss.

What Comes Next

Industry leaders have largely framed the situation as a liquidity challenge rather than a full-scale credit crisis. Private credit’s role as an alternative financing channel for mid-sized companies remains intact.

But the model for growth is shifting.

The era of aggressively marketing these products to retail investors appears to be slowing as redemption limits, valuation concerns, and investor expectations reset across the sector.

For many individuals who entered the market expecting steady income and flexible access, the lesson is becoming clear — often too late. Private credit was built for institutions willing to commit capital for years, not for investors expecting near-term liquidity.

As withdrawals continue and the investor base rebalances, the industry is entering a new phase — one defined less by rapid expansion and more by discipline, transparency, and a narrower audience.

JBizNews Desk
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