SpaceX taps debt markets for $40 billion AI chip purchases

Elon Musk said SpaceX has closed a $40bn debt financing deal to buy AI chips, pushing home the massive costs of building out the computing infrastructure as tech firms rush to develop AI.

Musk revealed the agreement on X on Sunday, stating SpaceX’s investment grade credit rating and revenue from its Starlink satellite internet and rocket launch operations were used to obtain the financing, according to Reuters.

“It’s mostly redeemable debt for the GPU nodes coming in Q1 and Q2. That’s not a huge part of this quarter,” Musk tweeted, saying the graphics processing units used to run AI systems.

The chips are scheduled to ship in the first half of 2027, though it was not immediately known whether investors had settled on final pricing for the debt, Reuters reported.

The report says the company is expected to spend between $35 billion and $40 billion in the quarter.

Musk also noted that acquisition became significantly more challenging for firms that depended primarily on the AI data centre. He said he expected to see a lot of mergers for AI infrastructure suppliers that leased computing power to AI companies or so-called neocloud firms.

It highlights just how much the cash is flowing into the AI boom, with companies pouring billions into higher-end processors and data centres to service ever-more complex systems.