“Funding secured.” - Elon (again)

Sorry AI bubble stans. Turns out, lenders are still writing checks for AI chips… if you’re the richest man on Earth, anyway.

The Dogefather (read: Elon Musk) posted on X Sunday that SpaceX closed $40B in debt financing to buy GPUs (Nvidia’s, per Bloomberg). Per Elon, it’s “primarily callable debt” (think: SpaceX can pay it back early) for chips arriving in the first half of 2027. He also made sure to mention that SpaceX is investment grade, which, technically. Its BBB rating is the second-lowest rung on that ladder.

Mind you, as of Friday, this deal was apparently f*cked. Bloomberg reported lenders were haggling over pricing, since investors are getting nervous about how much debt AI companies are piling on. Two days later, Elon says it’s closed, though it’s still not clear investors ever agreed on that pricing. Probably just a coincidence that the news landed on a Sunday, the day before up to 328.4M more SpaceX shares come off lockup. Nothing to see here… 

Now, the structure Bloomberg reported runs the debt through a special purpose vehicle to hide the bodies keep it off SpaceX’s balance sheet, which conveniently protects that investment-grade rating. Goldman Sachs led the talks with a who’s who of private credit, including Apollo, whose Atlas SP was slated to manage the vehicle. Translation: Jeff Skilling hasn’t been this bricked up since Enron.

SpaceX needs a $40B war chest for chips because its AI business, the former xAI it now calls “Super Intelligence” (creative name, guys), just became its biggest unit. The unit’s Q3 revenue mooned ninefold to $7.56B from $813M a year ago. For context, SpaceX’s CFO plans to yeet $35-40B at capex in Q4 alone, so this whole deal covers roughly one quarter. AI is expensive AF.

Oh, and then Elon decided to talk a little sh*t. He said debt markets have “almost entirely shut off access to money” for any company without real revenue outside AI data centers, and that “the 200+ neoclouds” (think: CoreWeave and Nebius, the GPU landlords renting chips to Big Tech) “are going to see guppy-level death and consolidation.” 

And just to piss off the rumor mill, Elon said he is NOT going shopping: “SpaceX is not buying any neoclouds. Pointless.”

Sucks to suck, CoreWeave. The biggest neocloud’s 2031 bonds have face-planted to yields near 16%, and Elon already replied “Yikes” to them two weeks ago.

Of course, that sound you heard was Jensen Huang whispering “wen moon?”. Place your bets accordingly, friends… 

Until next time! 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News does not hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.