SpaceX has secured a binding commitment for roughly $40 billion in financing for AI chips and related data center equipment, a deal the company disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday and described as the “largest committed GPU financing.” Under the agreement, an entity managed by Apollo Global Management will purchase the chips and server hardware and lease the equipment back to SpaceX. The leases will run about five to five-and-a-quarter years, starting when each tranche of equipment is delivered. SpaceX expects the deal to close by year-end, subject to closing conditions, with leases beginning in the first half of 2027 as the GPUs arrive.

CFO Bret Johnsen said the lease diversifies SpaceX‘s funding sources and addresses a notable portion of the funding required for its growth plans, adding that the company is seeing “less than one-year payback periods” on its AI infrastructure investments as it scales compute to power Grok and its cloud services. Apollo said the financing will help deliver Nvidia‘s next-generation Vera Rubin chips for SpaceX‘s “terrestrial compute buildout.” The financing gives SpaceX another path to fund expanding AI ambitions without relying solely on traditional debt markets, alongside its Starlink and launch businesses.

The deal follows a strong third quarter for SpaceX‘s AI segment, which includes the Grok chatbot, the Cursor coding tool, and its cloud compute business. That segment outperformed investor expectations and brought in $7.6 billion of SpaceX‘s $14.6 billion in revenue, more than Starlink and rocket launches combined. Capital expenditures also surged to nearly $20 billion, up from $6.9 billion a year earlier, as SpaceX races to expand its compute footprint. Johnsen said on the company’s Oct. 20 earnings call that SpaceX expects to spend $35 billion to $40 billion in the fourth quarter alone.

The lease comes amid turbulence in debt markets for AI infrastructure players, as investors grow wary of runaway capital expenditures and limited profits. SpaceX had no trouble tapping Wall Street, and Musk used the announcement to take a victory lap over pure-play AI compute rivals. Pointing to SpaceX‘s “investment-grade” status and steady cash flow from Starlink and rocket launches, Musk argued on Sunday that debt markets have largely closed the door on companies without major revenue streams outside of AI data centers, spelling trouble for the more than 200 neocloud companies built solely to rent out GPUs for AI workloads. “That means the 200+ neoclouds are going to see guppy-level death and consolidation,” Musk wrote on X. “Some will make it through, but not many.”