SpaceX Strikes $40B GPU Leasing Deal with Private Credit Players
SpaceX called the deal the largest-ever committed GPU financing.
Space exploration and AI company SpaceX SPCX struck a $40 billion master finance lease to purchase Nvidia NVDA GPUs, which will support the development of its subsidiary xAI and related data center projects.
Apollo and Goldman Sachs led the committed financing. Goldman Sachs was the structuring agent. Affiliates of BlackRock, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and KKR provided financing commitments. Under the terms of the deal, Apollo will acquire “Vera Rubin” GPUs from Nvidia and related equipment to lease to SpaceX. The asset purchases will be made in tranches, with lease schedules of roughly 5.00-5.25 years.
SpaceX will pay rent equal to 5% of the financed cost of each tranche, plus a fixed annual rate on the outstanding balance, according to an Oct. 26 8-K filing.
SpaceX called the deal the largest-ever committed GPU financing, exceeding a $36 billion structured notes deal finalized this summer to purchase and lease GPUs to Anthropic, backstopped by Broadcom. That deal was led by Apollo and Blackstone.
The new GPUs will power Grok, xAI’s LLM product, and support the company’s terrestrial compute buildout. (SpaceX has announced plans to build additional data centers in orbit.) The deal is expected to close prior to year-end, and leasing will commence in the first half of 2027.
Private credit lenders have been buzzing about the potential to finance the data center boom, which some see as a once-in-a-career investment opportunity.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on PitchBook.com.
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