SpaceX enters $40 billion deal with Apollo for AI chip financing

Oct 26 (Reuters) – SpaceX said on Monday an affiliate of Apollo Global Management will buy AI chips and server hardware and lease them to the rockets-to-AI firm, in a deal with total principal payments of about $40 billion.

Each lease will run a little over five years from the day the equipment arrives, according to a regulatory filing.

The deal highlights SpaceX’s heavy spending, as it tries to capitalize on surging demand for computing power to help bankroll its Moon and Mars ambitions.

The company aims to finalize the deal by the end of the year. The leases are expected to start in the first half of 2027, once the chips are delivered.

On Sunday, CEO Elon Musk said on X that SpaceX had “closed” $40 billion in debt financing for graphics processing units.

Musk said the funding mainly targeted chips arriving in the first and second quarters and would not be “a major factor this quarter.”

CFO Bret Johnsen had said SpaceX still expects fourth-quarter capital expenditure of $35 billion to $40 billion.

Reuters reported earlier this month that SpaceX was in talks with banks and asset managers to raise $40 billion to buy Nvidia chips.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Sriraj Kalluvila)