SpaceX announced on Monday that it has entered a binding agreement for roughly $40 billion in financing to purchase AI chips and related data‑center equipment. In a filing with regulators, the company described the arrangement as the “largest committed GPU financing.” Under the terms, a vehicle managed by Apollo Global Management will buy the graphics processing units and associated server hardware and then lease the assets to SpaceX. The leases will run for about five to five‑and‑a‑quarter years, kicking off when each batch of equipment is delivered, the filing said.
SpaceX expects the transaction to close before the end of the year, subject to customary closing conditions, with the first leases beginning in the first half of 2027 as the GPUs and other gear arrive. The financing gives the launch‑and‑satellite company an additional way to fund its fast‑growing AI ambitions without relying solely on conventional debt markets. “This lease diversifies our funding sources and addresses a notable portion of the funding required to deliver on our growth plans,” CFO Bret Johnsen said in a statement, adding that the company is seeing “less than one‑year payback periods” on its AI infrastructure investments as it scales compute for Grok and its cloud services.
Apollo noted that the funding will help deliver Nvidia’s next‑generation Vera Rubin chips for SpaceX’s “terrestrial compute buildout.” The deal comes as SpaceX ramps up spending to expand its AI infrastructure alongside its Starlink and launch businesses.
The financing follows a strong third quarter for SpaceX’s AI segment, which includes the Grok chatbot, the Cursor coding tool and a cloud‑compute offering. That segment generated $7.6 billion of the company’s $14.6 billion in revenue, outpacing investor expectations and surpassing the combined revenue from Starlink and rocket launches. Capital expenditures surged to nearly $20 billion, up from $6.9 billion a year earlier, as the company works to broaden its compute footprint. On the October 20 earnings call, Johnsen said SpaceX expects to spend between $35 billion and $40 billion in the fourth quarter alone.
The massive lease arrives after a turbulent period for debt markets serving AI‑infrastructure players, as investors have grown wary of high capital outlays and limited profit margins. While many firms have struggled to raise funds, SpaceX tapped Wall Street without difficulty. Elon Musk used the $40 billion announcement to take a shot at pure‑play AI compute rivals, pointing to SpaceX’s investment‑grade rating and steady cash flow from Starlink and launches. He argued that debt markets have largely shut the door on companies that rely solely on AI data‑center revenue, warning that more than 200 “neocloud” firms built only to rent GPUs could face “guppy‑level death and consolidation.” “Some will make it through, but not many,” Musk wrote on X.
Aditya Mehta contributed reporting for TechCrunch.