Elon Musk said Sunday that SpaceX has closed $40 billion in debt financing to buy GPUs for its AI data centers, crediting the company's investment-grade status and the revenue from its Starlink and launch businesses for getting the deal done. Musk disclosed the financing in a series of posts on X on October 25, in reply to venture investor Chamath Palihapitiya.
In a follow-up post about 40 minutes later, Musk said the package is callable debt tied to chip deliveries scheduled for the first and second quarters of 2027. He said the financing is not a major factor in SpaceX's current quarter.
“primarily callable debt for GPU purchases that will arrive in Q1 and Q2”— Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX
Musk did not name the lenders, the interest rate, the maturity or the closing date, and SpaceX has not issued a separate announcement. Talks over the package were first reported on October 6 and 7, when it was described as roughly $10 billion in bank loans and $30 billion in investment-grade debt, with Apollo Global Management expected to lead and PIMCO interested as a potential investor.
Key facts
- 01Elon Musk said on October 25 that SpaceX closed $40 billion in debt financing to buy GPUs for AI data centers.
- 02Musk said the debt is callable and funds GPU deliveries due in Q1 and Q2 2027, with no major impact this quarter.
- 03SpaceX guided to $35 billion to $40 billion in Q4 capex and about 200,000 GB300 chips coming online each month.
- 04Q3 capex was $19.6 billion, including $16.4 billion for SpaceX's Super Intelligence business.
- 05Musk said SpaceX will not buy any neoclouds, as he predicted consolidation among poorly capitalized GPU-rental providers.
Those early discussions also reportedly included special purpose vehicles that would hold the GPUs themselves as collateral. Musk's posts did not say whether the final deal kept that structure.
The chips are headed for Nvidia-based AI data centers, including SpaceX's Colossus cluster. SpaceX plans to use the compute internally and to sell capacity under external contracts.
The size of the deal lines up with SpaceX's spending guidance. On its third-quarter earnings call on October 20, the company projected fourth-quarter capital expenditures of $35 billion to $40 billion and said about 200,000 GB300 chips would come online each month.
Third-quarter capex was $19.6 billion, with $16.4 billion of that going to SpaceX's Super Intelligence business. The company reported $4.4 billion in profit on $14.6 billion in revenue for the quarter and ended September with $51.3 billion in cash and $38.6 billion in marketable securities. SpaceX completed an $86 billion IPO in June and issued bonds for the first time shortly afterward, using the proceeds to repay a bridge loan.
The exchange with Palihapitiya centered on neoclouds, the newer GPU-rental cloud providers such as CoreWeave and Lambda. Palihapitiya described the group as "disorganized and poorly capitalized," and Musk agreed that many of them would face consolidation. Musk said the credit window that let SpaceX close its deal is narrowing for AI infrastructure companies without other substantial revenue.
Musk also ruled out SpaceX acting as a buyer if that consolidation arrives. In a post at 2:01 p.m. Pacific time, he said SpaceX would not acquire any neocloud operators.
“SpaceX is not buying any neoclouds. Pointless.”— Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX
For now, the $40 billion is a 2027 line item on SpaceX's books. Musk said the GPUs it pays for arrive in the first half of next year, and the debt's callable structure gives SpaceX the option to retire it early.
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