SpaceX lines up about $40 billion in GPU lease financing led by Apollo

SpaceX has secured a commitment for roughly $40 billion in financing to pay for AI chips and data center equipment. Apollo announced the deal on October 26, 2026, calling it the largest GPU financing ever; the body of the release describes it more precisely as the largest committed GPU financing.

How the deal works

Rather than borrowing to buy the hardware outright, SpaceX will lease it. Under a master finance lease, an entity managed by Apollo Global Management acquires the GPUs and related server equipment and rents them to SpaceX. According to TechCrunch, each lease runs for roughly five to five and a quarter years, starting when a given batch of equipment is delivered. Apollo says lease schedules should begin in the first half of 2027, and that closing, which remains subject to conditions, is expected before the end of 2026.

Goldman Sachs co-led the financing with Apollo and acted as sole structuring agent. BlackRock, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and accounts advised by KKR made anchor commitments. Apollo says further terms will appear in a Form 8-K that SpaceX files with the SEC.

What the compute is for

The hardware is Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin chips, intended for what SpaceX calls its terrestrial compute buildout. In commentary attached to the release, SpaceX's chief financial officer, identified by TechCrunch as Bret Johnsen, says the capacity will power Grok for businesses and consumers and serve current and future cloud customers. He adds that the lease diversifies SpaceX's funding and covers a significant share of what its growth plans require, and claims payback periods of under one year on AI infrastructure.

Context and open questions

TechCrunch reports that SpaceX's AI segment, which it says includes Grok, the Cursor coding tool and cloud compute, generated $7.6 billion of the company's $14.6 billion in third-quarter revenue. Capital spending climbed to nearly $20 billion in the quarter, and the company expects $35 billion to $40 billion in the fourth quarter alone.

The deal comes as lenders have grown wary of AI infrastructure firms that spend heavily without matching profits. Elon Musk has argued, according to TechCrunch, that SpaceX's investment-grade rating and cash flow from Starlink and launches set it apart. The payback claim comes from the company and has not been independently verified, and the full lease terms were not detailed in the announcement.