SpaceX Agrees to Pay $40 Billion to Lease Chips from Apollo

SpaceX has agreed to pay $40 billion to lease artificial intelligence chips from an entity affiliated with Apollo Global Management.

The arrangement will see Apollo sell debt to buy the chips, and then lease them to SpaceX, giving the latter company access to Nvidia’s cutting-edge computing chips without taking the debt onto its balance sheet. Funds or accounts managed by Blackrock, Goldman Sachs, which served as the structuring agent, and KKR, served as anchor investors, according to a press release on Apollo’s website.

The money will go to purchase Nvidia graphics processing pods, which will be delivered in tranches tied to specific lease terms of about five years, the company said in a filing today. The agreement is set to close before the end of the year, with the first leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027. Pricing wasn’t disclosed but will be determined before the lease begins.

SpaceX is a major owner of the increasingly scarce computing capacity that powers AI, with Elon Musk saying last week that the company expects to bring an additional 10 gigawatts of supply online next year. In addition to supporting the company’s Grok chatbot, SpaceX has also emerged as a major supplier of compute to the leading AI labs.

Apollo has a history of working closely with Musk-controlled companies. Earlier this year, the asset manager participated in a $5.4 billion financing for what was then called xAI Corp. Apollo led the $3.5 billion of debt that was offered.