SpaceX $40 billion debt raise will pay for GPUs, Musk says

Key takeaways

• Elon Musk said on October 25, 2026 that SpaceX has raised $40 billion in debt to buy GPUs, describing it as "primarily callable debt" for chips due to arrive in Q1 and Q2.
• The statement follows reports from October 6–7 that SpaceX was seeking about $10 billion in bank loans and $30 billion in investment-grade debt, with Apollo Global Management expected to lead and Pimco among lenders in talks.
• Before this deal, SpaceX carried $38.8 billion of debt and finance leases at September 30, 2026, up from $22.9 billion at the end of 2025, according to its latest quarterly filing.
• Final terms (lender list, coupons, maturities and the loan-bond split) had not been disclosed in a public filing at the time of writing.

The SpaceX $40 billion debt raise will pay for GPUs, Elon Musk wrote on X on Sunday, October 25, according to Reuters. Musk described it as "primarily callable debt" for chips due to arrive in Q1 and Q2.

The announcement turns what had been a reported negotiation into a stated fact, at least on Musk's word. It also makes the SpaceX $40 billion debt package one of the largest single corporate borrowings tied directly to AI computing hardware, arriving at a time when lenders have become more selective about who they fund.

What Musk said about the SpaceX $40 billion debt

According to Reuters and Crypto Briefing, Musk described the financing as "primarily callable debt for GPU purchases that will arrive in Q1 and Q2," adding that it is "not a major factor this quarter." Callable debt can be repaid by the borrower before it matures, which gives SpaceX room to refinance or retire it early if its cash position or borrowing costs change. Several reports read the delivery window as the first half of 2027; Musk's post did not state the year.

Musk tied SpaceX's access to credit to its investment-grade rating and to revenue from its Starlink satellite internet and launch businesses, Reuters reported. He contrasted that with AI-only compute firms, saying credit markets have tightened for companies whose revenue depends mainly on renting out data-center capacity. According to TokenPost's account of the post, Musk predicted that more than 200 so-called neocloud providers face a wave of exits and consolidation, with only a few surviving.

Musk did not publish the lender list, interest rates, maturities or the split between loans and bonds. SpaceX had not filed a document with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission describing the deal as of this article's data cut-off.

From reported talks to a completed raise

The financing first surfaced on October 6, when the Financial Times reported that SpaceX was seeking roughly $40 billion to fund a large Nvidia chip order. Bloomberg and Reuters followed with similar details. The table below sets out what was reported at each stage.

Musk's post confirms the headline amount but not whether the October structure held. It is still unconfirmed whether Apollo led the final deal and whether Pimco took part. Readers should treat the $10 billion/$30 billion split as the reported plan, not the confirmed result.

How much debt SpaceX already carries

SpaceX's balance sheet has grown quickly since it absorbed Musk's xAI in February 2026 and listed on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX in June. Its quarterly report for the period ended September 30, 2026, filed with the SEC on October 22, shows the following.

Source: SpaceX Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 (SEC EDGAR). Data as of September 30, 2026.

If the new borrowing is drawn in full, SpaceX's debt would roughly double to about $79 billion on a simple sum of the two figures, before any repayments. Against that, the company held about $89.9 billion in cash and marketable securities at the end of September. Much of that cash came from its June initial public offering, which raised about $86 billion at $135 a share, and a $25 billion bond sale shortly afterward, split into five tranches maturing between 2031 and 2056.

Interest costs are already rising. SpaceX recorded $1.97 billion of interest expense in the first nine months of 2026, according to the 10-Q. Semafor noted in October that SpaceX's debt is high relative to its profits compared with other big AI spenders, at about five times Alphabet's ratio and three times Meta's.

Why SpaceX is borrowing for Nvidia chips

The new chips are meant for SpaceX's AI compute business, which runs the Colossus data centers in Memphis, Tennessee. SpaceX has said it uses Nvidia hardware exclusively at Colossus, and it rents capacity there to outside customers including Anthropic and Google, according to InvestingLive's summary of the FT and Reuters reports.

That business is now SpaceX's largest by revenue. As Bullquill reported, SpaceX's AI segment brought in $7.56 billion in the third quarter, overtaking Starlink, but at a much thinner operating margin. The segment took about $16.4 billion of a record $19.6 billion in quarterly capital spending, and management guided fourth-quarter capex to $35–40 billion. Borrowing against future chip deliveries lets SpaceX keep that build-out going without leaning only on its cash pile or issuing new shares.

Semafor pointed out that SpaceX's stock has traded largely sideways since the IPO, which makes selling new equity a less attractive way to fund AI spending. Debt avoids diluting existing shareholders, at the cost of higher fixed obligations.

What it means

For SpaceX, the raise locks in funding for its next large batch of GPUs months before they arrive. The callable feature matters: it gives the company the option to pay the debt down early if AI revenue grows as planned, or to refinance if rates fall. The trade-off is a balance sheet that is far more leveraged than it was a year ago, at a time when investors are questioning the pace of AI spending across big tech.

For Nvidia, the deal is another sign of how its largest customers are financing purchases. Nvidia's own shares have been volatile on the same worries; Bullquill covered the recent Nvidia stock correction over AI spending. A confirmed $40 billion order pipeline from one buyer supports demand into 2027, though the size of SpaceX's actual chip order has not been disclosed.

For credit markets, Musk's comments are a warning about the smaller players. If lenders favour borrowers like SpaceX that have non-AI revenue streams, AI-only cloud providers may find funding harder and more expensive to get. That is Musk's forecast, not a measured trend, and it comes from a company that competes with those providers.

The next things to watch are a possible SEC filing (such as a Form 8-K) that sets out the terms, any statement from Apollo or other lenders, and SpaceX's fourth-quarter results, which will show how much of the new debt has been drawn. For background on the wider Musk corporate picture, see Bullquill's explainer on what Musk has confirmed about a Tesla-SpaceX merger.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.