Wall Street Is Being Asked to Take Part of SpaceX’s $40 Billion AI Bet
Goldman Sachs and Apollo are reportedly shopping pieces of SpaceX's AI chip financing to investors, and whoever signs up inherits a risk the company refuses to carry. The real question is how fast newer silicon erodes the value of the…
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
Two of Wall Street’s biggest firms are reportedly lining up buyers for pieces of the money SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) is using to buy its next wave of AI chips. On November 4, 2026, a media report surfaced. It said Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Apollo Global Management (NYSE:APO) were in talks to sell portions of a roughly $40 billion financing for SpaceX. Some institutional investors were asked to take stakes of up to $500 million before formal syndication, which is the stage when a loan is offered to the wider market.
No one has independently verified the report. Goldman declined to comment, and Apollo and SpaceX did not immediately respond, but banks routinely sell pieces of a large loan before syndication, so the talks mainly show who will end up holding the risk.
SpaceX closed at $135.92, down 3.81%, for a market value of $1.79 trillion, and then traded at $134.01 after hours. That drop came before the report was released. Musk-linked shares had already fallen after Democrats swept the midterms.
What SpaceX Signed Versus What Was Reported
The signed part dates to October 26, 2026. That day, SpaceX disclosed a binding commitment for an approximately $40 billion master finance lease with an Apollo-managed entity covering NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) Vera Rubin chips and related equipment. The deal still has to meet closing conditions and is expected to close before the end of 2026.
The structure comes only from the report. It describes an $8.3 billion senior secured loan led by Goldman for banks, plus bond tranches aimed at asset managers. Together with a $7 billion lease prepayment, that money funds about $47.3 billion of Rubin hardware due in the first half of 2027. An Apollo-backed vehicle called Atlas SP buys the equipment.
The report calls the arrangement off-balance-sheet. Even so, SpaceX must keep paying rent regardless of what happens to the equipment, including damage or force majeure (events outside anyone’s control).
Who Holds the Obsolescence Risk
SpaceX gives no residual value guarantee, which means it does not promise what the chips will be worth when the lease ends. Investors buying these portions take that risk, so the central question is how quickly newer chips make Rubin hardware less valuable.
For SpaceX, the lease changes when the cash goes out. Purchases of property, plant and equipment reached $48.069 billion in the first nine months of 2026, up from $13.846 billion a year earlier. Management expects $35 billion to $40 billion of capital spending in the fourth quarter alone, and the lease turns part of that bill into fixed rent.
Testing the Payback Claim
SpaceX’s CFO has said AI infrastructure pays for itself in less than one year. So far, results support him: the AI segment produced $7.6 billion of the company’s $14.6 billion in third-quarter revenue.
Pricing is the weak spot. Musk said SpaceX rents computing power “at effectively the spot market rate as opposed to sign these long-term deals.” Spot rates can drop, while lease payments stay fixed.
Policy could also slow things down. Goldman Sachs estimates that states likely to tighten data center rules hold about 45% of planned U.S. capacity, with Texas making up a quarter of that share. Its economists expect any restrictions to be short-lived. Still, the expansion has to be powered, cooled, and wired by somebody, which is the whole point of a free report we put together on seven AI infrastructure suppliers that aren’t chipmakers.
Where SpaceX Stock Stands After the Lease Deal
Shares closed at $146.90 on the day the lease was announced and are down about 7.5% since. The market appears unsure how quickly this spending will turn into profit. SpaceX carries real risk at this price, because the payback case depends on spot computing power prices holding up, while the rent and the record spending are already committed.
NVIDIA has a different kind of exposure, because it gets paid for the Rubin chips no matter who ends up with the residual risk. It closed at $200.13 and trades at about 40 times earnings. Its latest quarter included $89.023 billion of Data Center revenue.
Watch whether the lease closes before December 31, 2026, and whether SpaceX’s next earnings report shows AI revenue still rising without price cuts, because unless both happen, questions about the payback case will likely remain.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
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.
