SpaceX seeks $40 billion financing to buy Nvidia AI chips

By Splitfeed EditorialLast updated Oct 7, 2026, 23:00 UTC

On October 7, 2026, the Financial Times reported that SpaceX is in talks to secure $40 billion in financing, led by Apollo Global Management alongside a group of banks, with the specific purpose of purchasing Nvidia AI graphics processing units. If completed, the arrangement would represent one of the largest single financing deals in history dedicated to AI hardware procurement. Separately, reporting from the same day noted that Nvidia is weighing an additional $1 billion investment in Figure AI, a humanoid robotics company, pointing to continued consolidation of capital around AI-adjacent hardware and robotics.

The scale of the SpaceX financing effort is significant beyond the headline number. SpaceX is primarily known as a launch and satellite company, and a $40 billion bet on AI computing infrastructure signals a substantial strategic pivot, or at minimum a major expansion of scope, into data center and AI workload territory. This raises genuine questions about what SpaceX intends to do with that much GPU capacity, whether it will operate the infrastructure internally, offer compute access commercially, or use it to power its Starlink and related services. The involvement of Apollo Global Management, a major alternative asset manager rather than a traditional technology lender, also reflects how broadly financial institutions are now positioning themselves around AI infrastructure spending.

No published reactions from Pro-AI, Anti-AI, or Middle Ground camps have emerged yet on this specific story. Pro-AI voices would typically welcome a deal of this kind as evidence that serious, capital-intensive industries are treating AI infrastructure as a foundational investment, comparable to building power grids or communications networks. Anti-AI commentators would likely raise concerns about the concentration of AI computing power in the hands of a small number of well-financed private actors, and about the financial risks of taking on debt at this scale for hardware that depreciates quickly. Middle Ground observers would probably focus on whether the underlying business case is sound, questioning whether demand for AI compute will materialize at a rate that justifies the financing costs.

The details most worth watching are whether SpaceX and Apollo formally close the financing arrangement, what terms are disclosed at closing, and whether SpaceX makes any public statement about the intended use of that GPU capacity. Any regulatory review of the deal's structure, given the scale of the financing and the parties involved, could also shape how this story develops in the weeks ahead.