SpaceX Secures $40B GPU Financing from Apollo to Fund AI Compute Expansion

SpaceX has reached a binding commitment for roughly $40 billion in financing for AI chips and data center equipment, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday. An entity managed by Apollo Global Management will purchase the chips and server hardware and lease the equipment back to SpaceX, in what the company called the "largest committed GPU financing." The leases will run about five to five-and-a-quarter years, starting when each tranche of equipment is delivered. SpaceX expects the deal to close by year-end, subject to closing conditions, with leases beginning in the first half of 2027 as Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips arrive. The agreement follows a strong third quarter for SpaceX's AI segment — including the Grok chatbot, Cursor coding tool and cloud compute — which generated $7.6 billion of the company's $14.6 billion in revenue. Capital expenditures rose to nearly $20 billion from $6.9 billion a year earlier. CFO Bret Johnsen said SpaceX expects to spend $35 billion to $40 billion in the fourth quarter alone, adding the lease diversifies funding sources and addresses "a notable portion" of growth-plan financing.