SpaceX, Broadcom and Oracle All Want Billions in AI Chip Debt at the Same Time
Three AI giants are racing to lock in tens of billions in long-term debt to buy chips that will be obsolete before the loans mature, and only one of them will have to answer for it if the bet goes…
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On October 7, 2026, the 10-year Treasury yield hit about 5.36% during the session. U.S. Department of the Treasury data show it had not been that high since 2002. It closed at 5.28%. Three large AI companies now reportedly want to draw from that same pool of long-term money to pay for chips.
The Financial Times, via Reuters, reported that SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) is seeking about $40 billion to buy NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) chips. The Wall Street Journal reported two more. Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) is raising more than $50 billion for the custom chip it is building with OpenAI. Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) wants a separate company to buy the chips for a 1-gigawatt data center.
SpaceX fell 2.51% to $167.60, Oracle slipped 0.84% to $143.56, NVIDIA lost 0.74% to $237.47, and Broadcom rose 0.19% to $376.51..
SpaceX would borrow in its own name, and the package would be about $10 billion in bank loans and $30 billion in investment-grade debt (bonds from companies that rating agencies consider low default risk), with closing expected in 2027.
Broadcom’s talks are reportedly early-stage. Oracle has not disclosed how many chips it wants to finance or the amount involved.
Who Actually Owns the Risk
Only SpaceX would carry the debt on its own balance sheet. SpaceX’s total debt reached $39.7 billion in June 2026, up from $30.6 billion a quarter earlier.
Broadcom gets the chip sales without being named as the borrower. Oracle’s setup works like an equipment lease: investors put money into a separate company, that company buys the chips, and Oracle rents them. If the chips sit idle, the investors take the loss, and the debt never appears on Oracle’s balance sheet.
That arrangement makes sense for Oracle because its borrowing is expensive. Benzinga reported that Oracle’s 2066 bond yields about 8.45%.
NVIDIA is involved on multiple sides of these deals. Elon Musk said on SpaceX’s August 4, 2026 earnings call, “So we’re exclusive to NVIDIA.” NVIDIA has also committed nearly 50 billion to frontier AI labs, so some chip demand is demand it helped pay for.
Why Short-Lived Chips on Long-Term Debt Matter
AI chips lose value within a few years as newer generations ship. SpaceX’s existing bonds average 11.7 years to maturity, so the debt can outlast the hardware it bought.
Credit strategist Amanda Lynam estimated AI-related bond sales at $489 billion so far in 2026, already more than all of 2025. Long-term debt competes with Treasuries for the same buyers.
A Morgan Stanley estimate from 2025 put the AI funding gap at $1.5 trillion. The same few private-credit lenders, including Pimco and Sixth Street, keep showing up in these deals. If AI spending stumbles, that small group would share the losses.
(Riding an AI expansion is one thing; planning the exit is the harder half, which is the whole subject of our free bubble survivor’s handbook.)
NVIDIA also said it has supply to meet only about 70% of demand.
Why SpaceX Carries the Most Financing Risk
SpaceX carries the most financing risk because it is the only company of the four borrowing on its own credit. Its $2.27 trillion market value assumes the AI expansion pays off, even though part would be paid for with debt that survives the chips.
NVIDIA sits in a stronger financial position within this trend. It receives the chip money from SpaceX and Oracle, has a debt-to-equity ratio of just 0.073, and trades at 25 times forward earnings.
This view of SpaceX’s risk would be wrong if AI revenue keeps up with spending. Management expects $100 billion in annualized revenue by December 2026. The SpaceX bond sale bears watching. If the investment-grade portion is cut, delayed, or forced to pay a higher rate before Oracle’s December 14, 2026 earnings report, the financing risk described here becomes harder to ignore.
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Omor Ibne Ehsan is a writer at 24/7 Wall St. He is a self-taught investor with a focus on growth, cyclical, and dividend equities that have strong fundamentals, value, and long-term potential. He also has an interest in high-risk, high-reward investments such as penny stocks.
