SpaceX is in talks to raise $40 billion to buy Nvidia AI chips, the Financial Times reported Tuesday, citing sources with knowledge of the matter. The package would split into roughly $10 billion of bank loans and $30 billion of investment-grade bonds, arranged by Apollo Global Management, with bond giant Pimco among the lenders in talks. Reuters and other outlets corroborated the reporting. A transaction would close in 2027 — but talks are preliminary and a transaction may never materialize, according to Bloomberg reporting carried by The Business Times.
The market reaction split neatly. SpaceX shares fell as much as 1.8% in postmarket trading as investors weighed a debt load equal to nearly half of its record $86 billion June IPO, while Nvidia's stock added as much as 0.6%, per The Business Times. Reuters put the extended-trading moves at minus 1% for SpaceX and plus 0.5% for Nvidia.
Musk's appetite for Nvidia hardware is no secret. In September he said xAI's Colossus 2 facility could expand its Nvidia chip inventory to more than twice the current level by year-end. The cluster now runs 550,000 chips in total — 110,000 GB200s and 440,000 GB300s, all Nvidia — and Musk says another 220,000 GB300s come online next week, 220,000 more in November, and up to 220,000 more by late December. Musk added the caveat: "if we get lucky." He added that its data-center buildout would rely solely on Nvidia chips.
Put the $40 billion in perspective: it is one of the largest single corporate debt packages ever tied to AI infrastructure, and nearly half the size of SpaceX's June IPO — itself the largest on record.
Why it matters
This deal sits at the exact intersection of the two trades dominating equity markets right now: AI compute demand and the private credit financing it. Morgan Stanley puts the AI buildout's outside-funding requirement at $1.5 trillion through 2028, while warning that lenders are growing more cautious — so how SpaceX's paper prices will be read as a live stress test of that caution. A $40 billion raise is 2.7% of that entire $1.5 trillion estimate in one transaction, from one borrower.
For Nvidia, the story is simpler: it is another concrete demand signal in a week already crowded with them. On Tuesday, nuclear-linked power stocks ripped 7-13% on Google's 20-year Constellation deal and a $4.2 billion federal loan for Vistra's reactors — both driven by data-center power demand, as we covered here. And Nvidia plays both sides of this financing boom: in August it lined up Apollo alongside five other Wall Street heavyweights — BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, plus Goldman Sachs and KKR — behind funding platforms meant to marshal a $500 billion-plus war chest for AI infrastructure — meaning Apollo is now both the arranger of SpaceX's $40 billion debt and Nvidia's partner in funding its own customers. For more of our recent SpaceX equity coverage, see yesterday's note on Morgan Stanley's $300 target, and browse the full stocks feed.
What to watch
- Whether Apollo can syndicate the debt and at what spread — pricing will signal real lender appetite for AI deals.
- The 2027 closing timeline; any slip or cancellation would move SpaceX shares immediately.
- The next Colossus 2 GPU tranches going live: 220,000 GB300s next week, another 220,000 in November, up to 220,000 in late December.
MarketRadar take
The demand side of this story is arithmetic, not hype. Run the Colossus 2 numbers: 550,000 chips today, three tranches of 220,000 GB300s still to come. That is a fleet heading to 1.21 million Nvidia chips by year-end — more than double in under four months. When the buyer has committed to Nvidia chips and nothing else, a $40 billion chip order stops looking speculative and starts looking like inventory.
| Colossus 2 milestone | GB300 additions | Running chip total |
|---|---|---|
| Current | — | 550,000 |
| Next week | +220,000 | 770,000 |
| November | +220,000 | 990,000 |
| Late December | +220,000 | 1,210,000 |
The risk is on the liability side. Illustrative math, not a forecast: if the $30 billion bond portion priced at a 5% yield, that alone would cost $1.5 billion a year in interest — before a single chip generates revenue. At a moment when Morgan Stanley says lenders are getting pickier, SpaceX must prove the debt pays for itself. Bullish for Nvidia's order book; a credibility test for SpaceX's balance sheet.
