NEW YORK, October 13, 2026 – SpaceX is reportedly in talks to raise around $40 billion, or $10 billion in bank loans and $30 billion in investment-grade debt, to fund an acquisition of Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips, with Apollo set to spearhead the funding. The move would be one of the clearest indications yet that the AI rollout has become a borrowing challenge as much as a technology challenge.
The scale is huge.
Forty billion dollars isn’t an ordinary chip deal. It’s more like money that would normally be raised for ports, power stations or a national broadband network. But SpaceX, the Elon Musk-led rocket and spacecraft company that went public in June via a record $86 billion IPO, is reportedly doing so to acquire processors for its Colossus data centers.
What the deal would look like
According to Report, SpaceX is in talks with banks and asset managers, with PIMCO being one of the lenders. Apollo is expected to play a leading role and help place the $30 billion debt part with a variety of investors; Apollo and PIMCO declined comment, while SpaceX and Nvidia did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Structure is key.
Bank loans can be done fast, but $30 billion worth of investment-grade debt will require an open market and a convincing story about future cash flows. Here is where the role of Apollo comes into play: it would not only arrange financing, but also sell the debt to investors who’ll be interested in learning exactly how a rocket company’s AI infrastructure will produce revenues.
There’s a twist, however. Sources spoke anonymously since the deal wasn’t disclosed yet. Terms, timeline, and even the very fact of financing are still unknown.
Why Nvidia chips, why now
It’s not as though this is some dramatic shift in focus for SpaceX. According to Musk, the company will only be using Nvidia hardware for its data centers going forward, while he also hinted earlier this month that xAI’s Colossus 2 data center would more than double its Nvidia chip inventory by December. Musk’s xAI was merged with SpaceX before its recent IPO, and the latter company’s Grok AI model runs on Colossus.
But SpaceX is trying to monetize that compute power, too. It has entered into deals to rent out compute power from its Colossus data centers to other prominent AI firms like Anthropic and Alphabet’s Google. That is to say, SpaceX isn’t just looking to train its Grok model; it’s looking to build itself a data center business where, theoretically, its clients help it service its huge debt.
It’s a sound strategy. It’s also an untested one.
The AI financing squeeze
The proposed raise lands in a market already straining under AI’s appetite for capital. According to Morgan Stanley, AI infrastructure alone will need $1.5 trillion in external funding by 2028 amid growing concerns among lenders and investors regarding the sector’s rapid growth.
Nvidia, which is the leading manufacturer of AI chips, has been making efforts towards increasing the amount of capital that can be allocated to data centers. In August, it teamed up with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR to create a financing platform which could channel over $500 billion into AI infrastructure projects.
But what is perplexing here? That SpaceX wants more chips? The real issue is whether investors would see a $40 billion investment in computing hardware as an ordinary infrastructure finance or as a highly risky bet on the sustainability of AI demand. Shares of SpaceX fell 2% during early trading after the report came out, while Nvidia gained 0.5%.
What happens next
But for now, the deal is still an ongoing negotiation rather than something signed in black ink. Should Apollo be able to provide the debt in favorable terms, the chips that SpaceX needs for its plan will be in hand. Should investors turn down the offer, then SpaceX will have to revise the deal or simply go about looking for a different source.
No matter what happens, the take-home point is difficult to ignore: the AI computing arms race is all about keeping accounts in balance. This is particularly notable when you consider the fact that SpaceX – an entity known for trying to get away from Earth’s gravity – is seeking financing on Wall Street.
