SpaceX has reached a binding commitment of approximately $40 billion in financing for AI chips and related data center equipment, the company said in a regulatory filing on Monday. In a statement, SpaceX called the deal “the largest GPU financing ever.”
Under the deal, an entity controlled by New York-based private equity giant Apollo Global Management will buy the chips and related server hardware and lease the equipment to SpaceX. According to the filing, the lease term will continue for a period of approximately five to five years and a quarter from the time each tranche of equipment is delivered.
SpaceX expects the deal to close by the end of the year, subject to closing conditions, and leases to begin in the first half of 2027, when the GPUs and related equipment arrive.
The funding gives SpaceX a new way to fund its rapidly expanding AI ambitions beyond relying solely on the traditional bond market.
“This lease diversifies our funding sources and addresses a significant portion of the capital needed to achieve our growth plans,” SpaceX Chief Financial Officer Brett Johnsen said in a statement Monday, noting that SpaceX expects the payback period for its AI infrastructure investment to be “less than a year” as it expands computing to power Grok and its cloud services.
Apollo said the funding will help provide NVIDIA’s next-generation Vera Rubin chips for SpaceX’s “terrestrial computing ramp-up.”
The funding comes as SpaceX expands its AI infrastructure and ramps up spending to ramp up operations alongside Starlink.
The funding follows a blockbuster third quarter for SpaceX’s AI business. SpaceX’s AI division, which includes the Grok chatbot, Cursor coding tool and cloud computing business, exceeded investor expectations in the third quarter, bringing in $7.6 billion of SpaceX’s $14.6 billion in revenue, more than Starlink and rocket launches combined.
As SpaceX rushes to expand its computing footprint, capital spending has soared to nearly $20 billion, up from $6.9 billion a year earlier. CFO Brett Johnsen said on the company’s Oct. 20 earnings call that SpaceX expects to spend between $35 billion and $40 billion in the fourth quarter alone.
The huge lease comes after the bond market for AI infrastructure companies was thrown into turmoil as investors worried about runaway capital spending and limited profits.
SpaceX had no problem tapping into Wall Street, but Musk used the $40 billion announcement to score a win over his pure AI computing rivals.
Musk on Sunday pointed to SpaceX’s “investment grade” status and stable cash flows from Starlink and rocket launches, arguing that the bond market has largely closed the door to companies with no primary revenue stream other than AI data centers, creating problems for the more than 200 neo-cloud companies created solely to rent GPUs for AI workloads.
“This means over 200 neoclouds will suffer guppy-level extinction and consolidation,” Musk wrote to X. “Some will survive, but many will not.”
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