Goldman Sachs and Apollo Global Management have begun approaching Wall Street investors to sell portions of SpaceX’s roughly $40 billion chip financing, Bloomberg reported on 4 November. SpaceX signed the equipment-finance lease with Apollo on 26 October to pay for Nvidia chips. The investor talks move a previously agreed financing towards a sale of its debt.
Key points
- Goldman Sachs and Apollo are approaching potential buyers for portions of a multi-tranche financing.
- An Apollo-managed entity will buy GPUs and server equipment and lease them to SpaceX.
- The fixed rate SpaceX will pay is to be set when the financing is priced.
- The transaction is expected to close before year-end, with individual leases expected to start in the first half of 2027.
Goldman Sachs and Apollo approach debt buyers
The firms are discussing sales of portions of the financing with Wall Street investors, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg. The financing has multiple tranches and is structured to keep the debt off SpaceX’s balance sheet. SpaceX has described the arrangement as the largest of its kind for graphics processing units, Bloomberg reported.
Goldman Sachs was the deal’s sole structuring agent, Bloomberg News reported on 26 October. Funds and accounts managed by BlackRock and Goldman Sachs Asset Management, along with capital accounts advised by KKR, made anchor commitments. Those commitments preceded the approach to additional buyers reported on 4 November.
The debt is being arranged as private bonds issued by an entity outside SpaceX’s balance sheet. Pricing discussions had been affected by volatility in AI debt markets, with investors seeking larger premiums to finance industry spending, according to the 26 October account. According to that account, SpaceX said in a filing that the fixed rate it will pay would be determined at pricing.
Apollo entity will buy Nvidia equipment
SpaceX reached a binding agreement to enter a financing lease with an Apollo-managed entity for Nvidia’s Vera Rubin chips and associated hardware, The Times of India reported on 26 October. The Apollo-managed entity will purchase the GPUs and server equipment, then lease them to SpaceX. The arrangement covers approximately $40 billion in total payments.
Each equipment lease will run for slightly more than five years from delivery. The individual schedules are expected to begin as shipments arrive, rather than putting all the equipment into service at once. SpaceX said the hardware would support Grok services and customers renting computing capacity, according to The Times of India.
SpaceX said the lease would broaden its funding sources and cover a substantial part of the investment required for its growth plans. In a statement reported by Bloomberg News, the company said it was seeing “less than one year payback periods” on its AI investments. That statement concerned investments already being made, while deliveries under the new lease are expected in 2027.
SpaceX debt pricing precedes 2027 leases
SpaceX carries an investment-grade rating from the three largest credit-rating firms, while the price of protection against losses on its debt had risen. Credit-default swaps tied to SpaceX reached a record 266 basis points at the close on 23 October, then traded at around 261 basis points early on 26 October, according to ICE Data Services prices reported by Bloomberg News.
The investor talks follow the roughly $40 billion lease agreement between SpaceX and Apollo reported by AI Affairs. The lease commits SpaceX to payments for equipment bought by the Apollo-managed entity, while the current talks concern sales of portions of the financing to investors.
SpaceX expects the transaction to close before the end of 2026, subject to specified conditions, The Times of India reported. The company expects equipment deliveries and the start of individual leases in the first half of 2027.
