SpaceX Locks In $40bn GPU Financing From Apollo
An Apollo-managed entity will buy AI chips and server hardware and lease them to SpaceX, which disclosed the binding commitment in a regulatory filing.
SpaceX has reached a binding commitment for roughly $40bn in financing for AI chips and related datacentre equipment, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing on Monday. It called the deal the "largest committed GPU financing".
Under the agreement, an entity managed by the New York private equity firm Apollo Global Management will buy the chips and server hardware and then lease them to SpaceX. Each lease runs for about five to five and a quarter years from the delivery of a tranche of equipment. SpaceX expects the deal to close by the end of the year, subject to closing conditions. Leases begin in the first half of 2027 as the hardware arrives.
Apollo said the financing will help deliver Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin chips for SpaceX's "terrestrial compute buildout".
SpaceX chief financial officer Bret Johnsen said the lease "diversifies our funding sources and addresses a notable portion of the funding required to deliver on our growth plans". He said the company sees "less than one-year payback periods" on its AI infrastructure as it scales computing for Grok and its cloud services.
Spending and the debt market
SpaceX's AI segment, which covers the Grok chatbot, the Cursor coding tool and its cloud compute business, brought in $7.6bn of the company's $14.6bn third-quarter revenue. That is more than Starlink and rocket launches combined. Capital expenditure rose to nearly $20bn, from $6.9bn a year earlier. On the October 20 earnings call, Johnsen said SpaceX expects to spend $35bn to $40bn in the fourth quarter alone.
The deal arrives after a rough stretch in debt markets for AI infrastructure companies, as investors worry about runaway spending and limited profits. Elon Musk used the announcement to comment on rivals. He pointed to SpaceX's investment-grade status and steady cash flow from Starlink and launches. On Sunday he wrote on X that debt markets have largely closed to companies without large revenue outside AI datacentres, and that the 200-plus "neocloud" firms built only to rent out GPUs face "guppy-level death and consolidation".
Source: TechCrunch