SpaceX seeks investment-grade bonds for most of a $40 billion Nvidia chip financing

Apollo's name sits at the top of the deal. In the Financial Times account, though, most of the money is bond money: investment-grade debt would be 75% of the package and bank loans 25% ^[15]. On that description, private credit arranges the deal and sells it on ^[5], and investment-grade buyers end up holding three-quarters of the risk ^[15]. The report does not say how much Apollo's own funds would keep.

Set against the commitments, the package covers them with $12 billion to spare, about 1.43 times the $28 billion figure ^[16]. Set against spending, or rather against the rate of spending, it looks thin. Second-quarter compute capex annualises to $63.2 billion ^[17], so $40 billion pays for about two and a half quarters at that pace ^[18].

It is also a much larger deal than Apollo has done with this borrower before. The two xAI cluster financings came to $6.9 billion together, and the reported package is about 5.8 times that ^[19].

Repayment depends on renting out compute SpaceX does not need itself ^[14]. The Anthropic leases, at about $1.25 billion a month ^[12], annualise to $15 billion ^[22], roughly 54% of the commitment total ^[23]. Crypto Briefing projects that third-party leases could potentially bring in roughly $40 billion or more in annual recurring revenue ^[25].

Nvidia sits on several sides of the transaction. It sells the chips ^[7], it held 122.8 million SpaceX shares worth about $21 billion as of June ^[11], and it is working with Apollo on AI infrastructure financing consortia that Crypto Briefing says could reach hundreds of billions of dollars ^[24]. The stake alone equals about 52% of the debt SpaceX would raise to buy Nvidia hardware ^[20].

If the FT version holds, the deal closes in 2027 with bond investors carrying most of the risk ^[6]. Weak demand for the bonds would leave more of it with Apollo and other private lenders, closer to how the xAI clusters were funded ^[10]. Faster lease growth would let SpaceX borrow less than $40 billion. I think the first outcome is the likeliest. A company whose second-quarter pace annualises to $63.2 billion, with $28 billion already locked in, needs outside money on top of what its tenants pay ^[17]. The counter-case is the Anthropic run-rate. If $15 billion a year from one tenant grows toward the leasing projection, the bond deal would be a bridge across 2027 more than a funding need ^[22]. A SpaceX filing showing a smaller raise, or 2027 commitments paid out of lease cash, would show that view is wrong.