xAI Eyes $34M Structured Financing with Apollo to Fuel AI Compute via NVIDIA Chips

xAI, the AI startup founded by Elon Musk, is expected to finalize a structured financing deal with Apollo Global Management. The agreement would provide about $34 million in lending to purchase NVIDIA AI chips, which Apollo would then lease to xAI, supporting its high-performance computing needs. This reflects industry shifts toward capital-light, finance-engineered solutions as training large AI models drives up upfront spending. The funding comes as xAI faces heightened cash pressure, with monthly cash burn exceeding $1 billion through the third quarter of 2025, driven by model training, compute deployment, and product development.