SpaceX secures $40 billion GPU financing deal with Apollo Global Management
SpaceX has locked in a binding commitment for roughly $40 billion in equipment financing from Apollo, described as the largest committed GPU financing deal, with leases set to begin in the first half of 2027.
What happened
SpaceX disclosed a binding financing agreement with an Apollo Global Management entity in a regulatory filing Monday. Under the deal, Apollo will purchase Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin chips and related server hardware, then lease the equipment to SpaceX under five- to five-and-a-quarter-year leases beginning upon delivery. SpaceX expects the deal to close by year-end. The company's CFO Bret Johnsen stated SpaceX is seeing less than one-year payback periods on AI infrastructure investments and noted SpaceX expects to spend $35 billion to $40 billion in the fourth quarter alone, up from $6.9 billion a year earlier.
Context
The financing reflects SpaceX's rapidly expanding AI spending across its Grok chatbot, Cursor coding tool, and cloud compute business, which generated $7.6 billion of the company's $14.6 billion third-quarter revenue — exceeding Starlink and rocket launches combined. This lease arrangement diversifies funding sources beyond traditional debt markets at a time when the debt markets for AI infrastructure have tightened amid investor concerns over high capital expenditures and limited profitability. SpaceX's ability to secure such financing contrasts with challenges facing over 200 specialized GPU-rental companies; Musk noted SpaceX's "investment-grade" status and steady cash flow from non-AI revenue streams, implying that companies relying solely on AI data center revenue face structural disadvantages in capital markets.