Nebius's $46 Billion Backlog Faces a $5 Billion Financing Test as Shares Slide 11%

Strong US jobs data dashed rate cut expectations, hitting Nebius's valuation. The AI infrastructure provider holds a $46B backlog and France expansion plans, but insider sales and funding concerns weigh.

The AI infrastructure provider Nebius finds itself at the intersection of staggering long-term demand and short-term market skepticism. With a contract backlog that could hit $46 billion from hyperscalers like Microsoft and Meta, the company is sprinting to build out capacity. But the market is now asking harder questions about how it will pay for it all — and the stock took an 11.45% hit on Friday to close at €197.90.

The trigger came from an unexpectedly strong US jobs report: 172,000 new positions in May against forecasts of just 80,000. That dashed hopes for rapid Federal Reserve rate cuts, and for a capital-intensive growth story like Nebius, higher-for-longer interest rates act as a lid on valuations. The annualized 30-day volatility of 136% explains why macro data can hit the stock so fast. The pullback also swept up NVIDIA and Intel, but Nebius’s deeper rally offered a larger drop zone.

France provided the spark, then came the reality check

Just days earlier, the mood had been electric. At the “Choose France” summit on June 1, President Emmanuel Macron championed Nebius’s plans to convert a former Bridgestone tire plant in Béthune into an AI data center. Partnering with Azur Datacenter, the company targets 240 megawatts of capacity in France with more than €8 billion in investment. The first 60-megawatt phase is slated to go live in summer 2026 and create around 120 direct jobs. The stock surged 14.5% that day on volume exceeding 24 million shares.

The euphoria cooled quickly. On June 2 — the same day the stock hit its year-high of €242.95 — BNP Paribas initiated coverage with a “Neutral” rating and a $255 price target. The bank acknowledged Nebius’s strong execution and prime position in AI infrastructure, but warned that expectations for future revenue had become ambitious. The broader consensus from S&P Global remains a “Buy,” with an average target of $238.86, though the range stretches from $120 to $380. That single cautious call, combined with the jobs report, was enough to trigger profit-taking.

Insider selling adds an extra layer of noise

Over the past 90 days, insiders have sold shares worth about $130.7 million, including 694,898 securities. The most notable transaction came from CTO Danila Shtan, who disposed of 15,678 shares on June 4 through a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan — a pre-arranged schedule that reduces the signaling impact. After the sale, Shtan still held 291,700 shares valued at roughly $69.7 million. Other disposals by Elena Bunina and Andrey Korolenko also ran through predetermined plans. The CFO sold on June 2, when shares were at their peak. Such sales are not automatic red flags, but they can reinforce the perception that the valuation has run ahead of operational progress.

That progress remains formidable. First-quarter revenue jumped 684% year-over-year to $399 million, and the order book is anchored by a deal with Meta worth up to $27 billion — $12 billion in firm capacity plus up to $15 billion in optional computing power. A separate Microsoft contract could reach $19.4 billion. Both are expected to start generating revenue from the second half of 2026. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has also singled out Nebius as an early partner for the Vera Rubin architecture, placing it alongside Microsoft and CoreWeave.

The technical picture favors consolidation, not collapse

Despite Friday’s rout, the stock remains 19.20% higher on a monthly basis and is up 158.69% year-to-date. The distance from the 50-day moving average of €149.41 is still 32.45%, and the stock trades 94.45% above the 200-day line of €101.77. The relative strength index sits at 56.2, nowhere near oversold territory. The decline from the high of €242.95 now stands at 18.54%.

That said, a capital-intensive growth model has costs. Nebius spent $2.47 billion on capex in the first quarter alone, and full-year guidance now calls for $20 billion to $25 billion. With $9.3 billion in cash on hand, a financing gap of $4 billion to $5 billion remains. That keeps the possibility of dilution or additional debt hanging over the stock. Meanwhile, the company is pushing ahead globally — securing land and power in Pennsylvania for up to 1.2 gigawatts, and planning a major AI forum in San Francisco on June 9.

For now, the story boils down to two hard milestones: securing the capital to fund the build-out, and delivering the first gigawatt-scale capacity from the second half of 2026. Until then, the market will keep weighing the $46 billion backlog against the $5 billion question mark.